Читать книгу One Night's Mystery - May Agnes Fleming - Страница 16

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y dear little Beauty, what a trump you are!" is Mr. Carew's enthusiastic exclamation. "It's awfully good of you to come."

He tries to embrace her, but Cyrilla resolutely frees herself, and draws back.

"No, thank you, Freddy; 'palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss.' I didn't come here to be made love to; I came for news of papa. There is a bench yonder, under the tamaracs, let us go to it. I believe, with the Orientals, that 'man is better sitting than standing.'"

"'Lying down than sitting, dead than lying down.' Is that your belief, Beauty?"

"No, I am afraid I would not be at all better off dead, particularly while I act as I am doing to-night. By-the-by, Freddy, I wish you would leave off calling me Beauty; it sounds too much as though I were a little woolly King Charles, with a curly tail and pink eyes."

"All right, Beau—I mean Cyrilla." They have found the bench by this time and sat down. "It is rather cruel of you, though, to refuse me one fraternal embrace, seeing we have been parted three years, and after my superhuman exertions to thaw out Miss—what was it?—oh, yes, Jones, and everything."

"You looked as though you rather enjoyed your exertions to thaw out Miss Jones," answered Cyrilla, coolly; "and we will have no tender scenes, if you please, Mr. Carew, either now or at any other time. You see before you the future Mrs. McKelpin."

Mr. Carew's glass goes to his eye instinctively in the moonlight.

"The Mrs.—how much?" he asks, helplessly.

"Mrs. Donald McKelpin," repeats Cyrilla, with unction and Mr. McKelpin's own Glasgow accent. "My Aunt Phillis has not only undertaken to provide me with an education in the present, a fortune in the future, if I conduct myself properly, but a husband—a gentleman fifty-one years of age; a tallow-chandler, Freddy, with a complexion like his own soap and candles, and hair and whiskers of brightest carrots. It is well to announce this fact in time for your benefit. I am an engaged young lady, Mr. Carew, and it is my intention to behave as such."

"Engaged!" Freddy repeats, blankly. "Beauty, you don't mean to tell me—you can't mean to tell me that——"

"Well, not positively, but it is all the same. Mr. McKelpin and Aunt Dormer understand each other pretty thoroughly, I fancy. He is worth a hundred thousand dollars, Aunt Phil three times that amount, and you know the proverb, 'He that hath got a goose shall get a goose.' I leave school at Christmas, and I have not the slightest doubt Donald will propose two days after."

"And you will accept him, Cyrilla?"

"Such is my intention, Freddy. Beggars mustn't be choosers. I don't know how he managed to ingratiate himself into Aunt Phil's good graces; he isn't by any means a fascinating being but the fact remains—he has. It seems to me sometimes a pity she can't marry him herself, but I fancy she feels bound to perpetual continence by her hatred of your father's memory. After all, Fred, it was a shame for him to treat her so, poor old soul."

"A most heinous shame!" assents Mr. Carew, with considerable energy. "My father is dead, and it may be disrespectful, but I will say, it was the action of a cad."

Cyrilla shrugs her shoulders.

"'Like father, like son.' Are you sure you would not do the same yourself?"

"Quite, Beauty."

"Well, don't be so energetic. You are never likely to have a chance of jilting me. What I tell you about Mr. McKelpin is quite true. I mean to marry him and lead a rich and virtuous life; that is, if the last of an utterly reprobate and castaway race can become rich and respectable. How is poor papa, Fred, and when did you see him last?"

"Poor papa is perfectly well, as he always is, Beau—— I mean Cyrilla. It doesn't seem in the nature of things, somehow, for jolly Jack Hendrick to get knocked up. It is three months since I saw him, and then he was hanging out at Boulogne, in a particularly shady quarter, among a particularly shady lot. My grand-uncle Dunraith, who, in an uplifted sort of way, now and then recalls the fact of my existence, had sent me a windfall of fifty pounds. Your poor papa, Beauty, won it from me at chicken-hazard, with his usual bland and paternal smile, and sent me back to Aldershot a plucked chicken myself."

"Ah! poor papa!" says Miss Hendrick, heaving a sigh.

"Ah! poor papa!" echoes Mr. Carew, heaving another. "Papa is one of those people whom it is safer to love at a distance than close at hand. He wept when he spoke of you, and he had not been drinking harder than usual, either. 'Take her my bless-ess-hessing, Freddy, my boy,' sobs your poor papa, wiping a tear out of his left optic; 'it's all I have to send me child.' And then he took another pull at the brandy-and-water. He's a humbug, Beauty, if he is your father! Don't let us talk about him—let us talk about ourselves. When are you going back to England?"

"Never, Freddy. Go back to England! What on earth should I go back for? Your father's noble relatives recall the fact of your existence every once and a while: my mother's noble relatives totally ignored me from the first. By the way, Fred, if your father had behaved nicely, and married Aunt Phil, and pleased the earl and countess, you would have been heir to all the Dormer thousands now, and my first cousin. Think of that!"

Mr. Carew does think of it, and the notion so tickles his boyish fancy that he goes off into a shout of laughter that makes the echoes ring.

"By Jove, Beauty! Your first cousin, and Miss Phillis Dormer's son! How good, by Jove! But I am afraid the Dormer thousands would have been beautifully less by this time if my father had had their handling. The only genius he possessed was a genius for getting rid of money, and that has honorably descended to his only son, only he never has any to get rid of."

"Yes," Cyrilla says, gravely. "Mr. McKelpin will make a much better guardian of the Dormer dollars than you or your late lamented father. For pity's sake, Fred, don't laugh so loudly. Miss Jones's window is directly over mine, directly opposite this, and Miss Jones invariably sleeps with one eye open."

"If Miss Jones's beauteous orbs were as sharp again as they are," answers Mr. Carew, "she could hardly see us here. But all this is beside the question. Let us return to our mutton—I mean to our soap-and-candle man. Beauty, it isn't possible—it cannot be possible—that you are going to throw me over, and marry the Scotchman?"

He takes both her hands in one of his and holds her fast. Cyrilla resists a little, but Mr. Carew is firm, and maintains his clasp.

"Throw you over, Fred! I like that! As if there could ever be any question of loving or marrying between you and me. As if I could ever look upon you—a small boy—in the light of a lover!"

"Indeed!" says Mr. Carew, opening his handsome blue eyes, "a small boy like me? In what light, Beauty, have you looked upon me, then, in the past, in the days we spent together in Bloomsbury? You see I am deplorably ignorant in all these nicer distinctions."

"As my very good friend and staunch comrade, always. Those days in London, spent together, were the best I have ever known; the best I ever will know."

"What, Miss Hendrick! Even when you are the rich and respectable Mrs. Sandy McKelpin?"

"Donald, Freddy, Donald—Mrs. Donald McKelpin. Yes, even then; although, as far as money will go, I mean to enjoy my life. And there is no enjoyment, to speak of, in this lower world, that money will not purchase. For you, Fred, I told you your fortune six hours ago. You will steer clear of the dark lady, Cyrilla Hendrick, and you will marry the elderly blonde person with a fortune. I can't point her out at present, but I have no doubt she exists, and can be found if you set about it properly. Seriously, Fred, your father made a fiasco of his life by marrying for love and all that nonsense, and died years before his time in poverty and premature old age. Take warning by him, and do as I shall do, marry for money."

Mr. Carew smiles that peculiarly sweet smile of his that lights up so pleasantly his blonde, boyish face.

"I have never thought much about marriage in the abstract," he says, "in fact I never thought of it at all, Beauty, until you put it in my head: but I think I may safely say this: that I will never marry, either for love or money, unless I can call Cyrilla Hendrick my wife."

There is real feeling in his voice, real love in the blue eyes that shine upon her. Cyrilla Hendrick's black ones flash and soften in the moonlight as they meet his.

"Oh, Freddy! you really are as fond of me as this?"

His answer is not in words, but it is satisfactory. There is silence for a little.

"And you won't marry the Scotchman, 'Rilla?" he says, at last.

"Yes, Freddy: I shall marry the Scotchman, but all the same, dear old fellow, you shall be first in my heart—such heart as it is—to the end of the chapter."

"Happy Mr. McKelpin! Is this the sort of morality they teach in young ladies' seminaries, then?"

"I never required to be taught, Fred," Cyrilla replies, rather sadly; "all worldly and selfish knowledge seems to come to me of itself. Besides, it is done every day, and where is the great harm? I shall marry Mr. McKelpin, and make him as good a wife as he wants or deserves, and you and I shall go on, meeting as good friends, just the same as before."

"No!" cries Fred Carew, with most unwonted energy, "that I swear we shall not! The day you become Mrs. McKelpin, or Mrs. Any-body-else, that day you and I part forever. None of your married woman platonic friendships for me! The hour you are made any man's wife that hour we shall shake hands and separate for all time!"

"Freddy!" she says, almost with a gasp, "you don't mean that!"

"I mean that, Beauty. Mind—I don't say you are not right—if you do marry the Scotchman, I won't blame you. I am poor—I have my pay, just enough at present to keep me in moss rosebuds, cigars, and Jouvin's first choice. I have no expectations; a poor man I will be as long as I live. No one could blame you for throwing me over for the tallow-man. Only when you marry him our intimacy shall end. My father acted like a scoundrel to your aunt. I won't act like a scoundrel to you."

"It would be the act of a scoundrel to remain my friend—to go on seeing me after I am married?" Cyrilla demands, her cheeks flushing, her eyes flashing.

"It would, Beauty. Your friend I could never be—that you know. The motto of my Uncle Dunraith is, 'All or nothing.' In this matter it is my motto also—all or nothing!"

Again there is silence. On the young man's face a resolute expression, altogether new in Cyrilla's experience of him, has settled. On hers a deep, unusual flush burns.

"You mean this, Mr. Carew?"

"I most decidedly mean this, Miss Hendrick. I will be the happiest fellow in the universe if you will marry me to-morrow. If you will not, I have nothing to say—you know best what is best for you, I am very sure. But stand by and see you married to another man—go on meeting you after, knowing that you were lost to me forever—no, by Jove!" cries Mr. Carew, "that I won't!"

"As you please," Cyrilla answers, and she rises resolutely as she does answer. "You will act, of course, in all things, Mr. Carew, as your superior wisdom may suggest. I can only regret, since the proposal is so distasteful to you, that I made it at all. Forget it—and me—and my folly in meeting you here, and good-night."

She turns to go, but before she has moved half a dozen steps he is by her side, detaining her once more.

"Angry, Beauty? and with me? What nonsense! You couldn't be, you know, if you tried. Are you really going to leave me, 'Rilla?" He is holding both her hands once more. "Not at least until you tell me when and where we are to meet again."

"There shall be no more meetings, Mr. Carew. The friendship you disclaim so disdainfully in the future shall end at once. Good-night."

"And once more—nonsense, Beauty! I decline to meet Mrs. McKelpin, but Cyrilla Hendrick I shall go on meeting, and loving, while she lives. If I may not come here again, will you write to me, at least?"

"Have I not already told you no letter can come into the school that is not opened by Mademoiselle Stephanie? Still——"

"Yes, Beauty—still?"

"Still I think I can arrange it." Cyrilla has relented by this time. "Helen Herne, one of the day-scholars, will smuggle my letters out, and yours in. She and Sydney Owenson are the only two in the school I would trust. Are you stationed here in Petit St. Jacques for the winter?"

"No, only temporarily; our headquarters are Montreal. By-the-by, your home, Miss Dormer's rather, is in Montreal. When you leave school we must manage to meet often. Meantime, 'Rilla,"—he draws her closer to him in the moonlight—"promise me this—don't take that oath not to marry me."

The handsome face is very close, very pleading. She loves him, and the last shadow of anger vanishes from hers like a cloud, and a smile, Cyrilla's own, too, rare and most radiant smile, lights it up.

"I think I may safely promise that much, Fred—yes."

"And you won't marry McKelpin—confound him!—without letting me know?"

She laughs, and promises this too. They are out in the open air by this time—in broad, chill, dazzlingly white, midnight moonlight. St. James-the-Less chimes out sonorously, on the still frosty air, twelve.

"Good Heaven, Fred, midnight! This is awful! Let me go. No, not another second! Good-night, good-night!"

She tears herself from him, and swings nimbly into her friend, the hemlock-tree. He stands and watches her clambering up, hand over hand, sees her reach the lead water-pipe and mount upon the sill of the window. She waves her hand to him, and he turns to depart. With that parting smile still on her face she vaults into the room, and finds herself face to face with—Mademoiselle Stephanie and Miss Jones!