Читать книгу One Night's Mystery - May Agnes Fleming - Страница 22

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t is raining still, and raining heavily; a November gale surging through the trees of the playground, sending the rain in wild white sheets before it. No out-door romp for the Chateauroy pensionnaires to-day. They are congregated in the barn, a large and lofty building, and "Fèrre l'Hermite" is tumultuously beginning as Sydney and Cyrilla appear. At the sight of the latter, a whoop of surprise goes up, and Miss Jones, standing absently looking out at the storm, turns round, and sees her enemy—free.

She stands and looks—mute with surprise. There is an audacious smile, as usual, on Miss Hendrick's dark face, an audacious laugh in her black eyes. She quits Sydney and goes straight up to Miss Jones.

"You are to go to Mademoiselle Stephanie's room at once, Miss Jones," she says, with a most exasperating smile; "I think she has a word of warning for you."

Miss Jones makes no retort, for the excellent reason that she has none ready. There is a pause of three seconds, perhaps, and they look each other straight in the eyes. It is to be a duel à la mort between them henceforth—and both know it. Then, still in silence, Miss Jones turns, quits the playground, and reports herself at headquarters.

Cyrilla is surrounded, besieged with questions, but she shakes them off, and orders them imperiously about their business.

Since she first entered the school she has been queen-regnant—queen-regnant she will be to the end. She joins as noisily as the smallest girl there in the game, her piercingly sweet voice rising in the monotonous chant high above all the rest. So Miss Jones finds her upon her return. The interview with mademoiselle has left Miss Jones a trifle paler than her wont, with anger it may be, but she says not a word as she returns to her former occupation of gazing out at the rain.

The long, wet afternoon passes, night comes, and all retire. Sunday morning breaks, still wet and windy; there is to be no church-going, greatly to the disappointment of the young ladies. Instead, mademoiselle reads aloud for an hour some book of sermons. They dine at three instead of one, a high festival dinner of roast-beef and plum-pudding. Then the girls are left to themselves, to wander about corridors and passages, visit each other's rooms, gossip, write letters, or read, as they please.

It is Sydney Owenson's last day. To-morrow morning she goes, to be married in a month. Four and thirty girlish bosoms beat with envy at that thought! It it like a fairy tale to them; nothing of the kind has ever transpired before, nothing else is thought of, or talked of, all day. Sydney moves about among them, in a pretty dress of silk, the famous chain and locket around her neck, her engagement ring sparkling on her finger, a glistening watch at her girdle, all her golden, feathery curls falling over her shoulders—a shining vision. One by one, she visits the girls, sobbing a little sob here and there, and realizing for the first time how fond she is of them all. Cyrilla goes with her; and so the desolate, lead-colored, Sabbath afternoon deepens into night, and it is quite dark when Mademoiselle Jeanne comes up and says Colonel and Mrs. Delamere have called, and are in the parlor waiting to see her.

And, "But no, mademoiselle," Mademoiselle Jeanne says, laying a restraining hand upon Cyrilla's arm, "Mees Hendrick is not to accompany you."

Sydney descends. Firelight and lamplight illumine the parlor and dazzle her for a moment coming out of the dusk. She looks and sees, not alone Colonel and Mrs. Delamere, but that most coolly audacious of young officers, Mr. Fred Carew. Opposite him, her hands folded in her lap, her face like a small chocolate mask, sits Mademoiselle Stephanie.

Sydney gives a little gasp, a little laugh, and a little blush, as she meets his eyes. Then arises Mrs. Delamere with effusion, and Miss Owenson is folded to her brown-silk bosom. She shakes hands with the Colonel and Mr. Carew, and sits demurely down, understanding why Mademoiselle Jeanne had put a summary stop to Cyrilla's accompanying her.

The interview is not long. Mrs. Delamere chats with her in her kind, motherly way. The Colonel booms in occasionally with his ponderous laugh, and Mr. Carew sits and smiles upon her, and looks handsome and well-dressed, and addresses the few pleasant little remarks he does make almost exclusively to mademoiselle. In strong suppressed displeasure mademoiselle responds, monosyllabic responses, and then the call is over, and they are standing up, and Mrs. Delamere, with tears in her eyes, is kissing Sydney good-by. Again she shakes hands with the Colonel, then shyly with Mr. Carew, and as he holds her hand for a moment and bows over it, she feels a note suddenly and deftly slipped into it. Her fingers close over it, but she does not look at him; then they are gone, and she is alone, her heart beating guiltily, with mademoiselle.

"That is the young man, Carew, whom Mees Hendrick met last night, is it not?" she asks, her little eyes flashing. "Most insolent his coming here. He shall be admitted no more."

Sydney flies off to deliver her note, and finds Cyrilla lingering on the upper landing.

"For you, Cy—from Mr. Carew," she whispers. "Would you believe such effrontery?—he actually came with the Delameres. He slipped this into my hand as he said good-by."

"It would be difficult to say what piece of effrontery Fred Carew would not be capable of. Mademoiselle Stephanie's face must have been a study."

"It was," laughs Sydney; "he is not to be allowed here again. She was proof against his sweetest smiles and tenderest glances."

Cyrilla reads her note, her face softening, her eyes lighting. It is not long—the pen is by no means mightier than the sword in Mr. Carew's grasp—but it brings an eloquent flush to the girl's dark cheek.

"Poor foolish Freddy," she says with a half laugh, a half sigh. "What nonsense he writes. He goes to Montreal for the winter, and he wants—he actually wants me to marry him as soon as I leave school. 'Something will turn up,' he says, in his absurd way; 'something always turns up to help virtuous poverty. And if it doesn't, why seven-and-sixpence a day will buy daily bread and beefsteaks, and what more do we want? Lord Dunraith will send us an odd fifty now and then, and Miss Dormer will come round when there's no help for it. Throw over the soap-and-candle man, Beauty, and let us be a comfortable couple.' Did you ever hear such idiocy, Syd? And the best of it is he means every word."

"Is it idiocy?" asks Sydney. "I don't know, but it seems to me that, liking him as you do, it will be something worse than idiocy to marry the soap-and-candle man. I can't understand your loving Mr. Carew and marrying Mr. McKelpin."

"No, I dare say not," Cyrilla answers, calmly; "but then you see you've been brought up in the lap of luxury, a bloated aristocrat, Syd, while I am a pauper, and have been from birth. If I married Freddy, I would go a pauper to my grave. There is no choice. 'Needs must,' saith the proverb, 'when the devil drives.' I wish—yes, Sydney—with all my heart, I wish I might marry Fred Carew, but I can't, and there the matter ends. Don't let us talk about it, it always makes me uncomfortable. Let us talk of you. To think that this time to-morrow night you will be hundreds of miles away!"

They are pacing up and down the long, deserted class-room. The rain has ceased, a few frosty stars glimmer through rifts in the cloudy sky. Far below, the merry tumult of girlish voices and laughter comes, far below they can see the lighted passages and rooms. Outside, the lonesome wind sighs up and down the deserted Rue St. Dominique.

"Hundreds of miles away!" Sydney echoes, with a sigh. "Yes."

"You are not sorry, Syd. Honestly now. You are not sorry to quit this stupid, humdrum school, these noisy, romping girls, the drudgery of endless lessons, for home and freedom, Bertie Vaughan and bridal blossoms! Don't say you are, for it is too much for human credulity to believe."

"Sorry, Cy? Well, no. I am glad to go home, glad to be with papa and mamma, and Bertie, of course, but still——"

"But still that good, tender heart of yours, my Sydney, has a soft spot for 'Frère l'Hermite,' and the Demoiselles Chateauroy, and even crusty Miss Jones. It speaks well for you, chérie, but is not over-flattering to Mr. Vaughan. You preached of love a moment ago, yet here you are going to marry a man you don't care a straw for."

"Don't I? That is your mistake, Cy. I care whole bundles of straw for Bertie—haven't I told you so, again and again? I like him better than any man I know."

"And you know—how many? The fat old colonel—one," said Miss Hendrick, checking them off on her fingers; "the fussy old doctor—two; little old Professor Chapsal—three; venerable Jean Baptiste Romain—four; your papa—five. That comprises the list, does it not? And you like him better than any man you know. Happy Mr. Vaughan!"

"I like him better than any man I ever saw, then," cries Sydney, defiantly, "your pretty little lover included. And papa and mamma like him, and wish me to marry him; that is sufficient, if there were no other reason. I don't believe in that mad, selfish sort of passion we read of, where girls are ready to sacrifice their fathers and mothers, and homes, and soul's salvation for some man who takes their fancy. I hate you when you are cynical and sarcastic and wordy, Cyrilla. I wish you would drop it; it doesn't become you. Leave it for poor, disappointed, crossed-in-love Miss Dormer."

"Bravo, Syd? Who'd have thought it? I begin to have hopes of you yet. I only trust your Bertie may be worthy of his sweet little wife. For you are a little jewel, Sydney, and better than you are pretty."

"Oh, nonsense, Cy! Drop that."

"I shall miss you horribly, chère belle," Cyrilla goes on, plaintively. "You were the leaven in this dull house that leavened the whole mass. Still, it's only till Christmas, and then——" her eyes sparkle in the dusk, she catches her breath, and her color rises.

"You will go to Montreal, and Freddy will be there. You will see him surreptitiously, and all the time you will be promising Mr. McKelpin and your aunt to marry him," supplements Miss Owenson, gravely. "Take care, Cyrilla; that's a dangerous sort of game, and may end in bringing you to grief."

"Little croaker! the danger of it will be the spice of life. And, meantime, if your papa writes a nice diplomatic note to Aunt Phil, and gets her consent, I shall 'haste to the wedding,' see Master Bertie, and bestow my benediction on your nuptials. I will never forgive Aunt Dormer if she doesn't let me go."

Arm in arm the two girls pace up and down the long, chill room, talking eagerly in undertones. In another half hour the bell for evening prayers rings, and their last tête-à-tête, where they have held so many, is at an end.

"Good-by, old class-room," Sydney said, wistfully. "I have spent some very jolly days here, after all."

Prayers and pious reading were long on Sunday night; most of the girls were yawning audibly, a few were nodding, and one or two of the most reprobate fast asleep before the close. Then to their rooms, and silence and darkness brooded over the miniature world of the boarding-school, with its bread-and-butter hopes and fears, heart-burnings and passions.

Monday morning came—a perfect day, sparkling with frosty fall sunshine. A buzz of suppressed excitement ran through the school. A "round-robin" for a half holiday was sent to Mademoiselle Stephanie, and was granted. Breakfast was eaten amid a gabble of conversation, and as they arose from the table a thrill ran through all as a hackney-coach drove up to the door. The messenger for Sydney Owenson had come.

She was dressed in her travelling suit, a pretty "conserve" of gray and blue, with hat and gloves to match. Her trunk stood packed and strapped in the hall. Mademoiselle Stephanie came herself tremulously to bear the message that Rebecca was waiting, and that Miss Owenson must say good-by at once. There was no time to lose—their train started in less than half an hour.

The scene that ensued! who may tell? "Good by! good-by! good-by!" tears, kisses, promises to write ad infinitum, and then Sydney, her handkerchief quite drenched with weeping, tears herself away, and springs into the carriage. The door is closed, she leans forward her lovely tear-wet face. They are all there on the steps, teachers, pupils, servants, and, foremost, the tall, erect figure and fine face of Cyrilla Hendrick.

"Good-by, Cy—dearest Cy," she sobs, and "Good-by, Sydney." Miss Hendrick answers, gravely, but without tears.

The coachman cracks his whip, and they are off, rattling down the silent Rue St. Dominique, and the pensionnat, and the throng of eager faces out of sight. She falls back, crying quietly, but before they are half way to the station her tears are dried and she is listening eagerly to Rebecca's account of all at home.

The station is reached—smiles have totally routed tears, the pretty gray eyes sparkle, the delicate cheeks flush. The old life is at an end. After all, Cy was right, it was dull—and the new one is begun. The old one ended in darkness and rain, the new one begins in sunshine and brightness. It is emblematic, the girl thinks, and she gives her engagement ring a shy little kiss, and thinks, with a happy blush and smile, that she is going to Bertie, to her bridegroom—and so forgets the pensionnat.