Читать книгу Magdalen's Vow - May Agnes Fleming - Страница 11
ОглавлениеSUMMER DAYS.
Miss Winters came tripping up-stairs again before the governess had removed her bonnet, her pink complexion a thought deepened by the exercise.
"I have ordered peaches and cream and chocolate for tea," she breathlessly announced, "and I hope you will like sally-lunns, Miss Wayne—our Bridget makes them lovely. What pretty hair you've got, and such a lot of it! Mine's thin; it doesn't look thin, you know, but it is, and I do most of it up in front—corkscrew curls, George calls 'em—and it don't take but little to make one's waterfall. Don't you like the new style?"
Miss Wayne's abundant, glittering locks were worn in a shining coronet, coiled around her stately head.
"I find it more convenient to wear mine like this, Miss Winters."
"And ever so much more becoming. But please don't call me Miss Winters; nobody ever does so except Aunt Lydia when she scolds me. Call me Fanny—and, oh, please! may I call you Magdalen? It is such a sweet, pretty name!"
"Call me Magdalen, by all means; I greatly prefer it to Miss Wayne. I believe I shall not be able to change my dress—my trunk has not arrived."
"It does not matter in the least," said Fanny; "there will be nobody to see you, you know. George doesn't know cotton from brocade; men are as stupid as cows, mostly, about girls' fixings. Who are you in mourning for, Magdalen?"
A dark cloud swept over the fair face of Miss Winters' governess.
"For my father and sister."
"Oh, you've lost your father, then—so have I. Is your mother alive?"
"My mother died when I was a child."
"And so did mine," cried Fanny, looking charmed at the coincidence, "and whatever would have become of me without Aunt Lydia, I'm sure I don't know. I've been here four years, and I was a dreadful little ignoramus of twelve, and I've had at least twenty governesses since."
"Is it possible? Twenty!"
"Well, you see some of them were nasty old pumps, and some of them made love to George, and some didn't know much more than I did myself, and some—oh, we've had a precious time with them, I can tell you. But I feel sure you and I will get along together lovely. You don't look as if you could be cross and fussy and hateful."
"I wonder your aunt did not send you to school."
"No; she likes to have me at home. I'm company for her when she's well, and she's very fond of me and very good to me, although she scolds considerable, and says I'm silly and frivolous. But then, how is one to help being silly and frivolous when one's happy? though goodness knows I'm not happy half the time, mewed up here. It's all very well when Phil's down," said Fanny, turning two or three shades pinker, suddenly; "but that's not often nowadays."
"Who is Phil?"
"Aunt Lydia's other nephew," responded Fanny; "he's a doctor, you know, and he practises in New York. He was here for a fortnight until yesterday when the old doctor, his partner, telegraphed for his return. They say he's like George, but I can't see it, and I like him a great deal better; he's more polite and gallant, and sings and dances better. George has quite a little fortune of his own, but Phil has nothing, and they're orphans like me, and Aunt Lydia brought them up. George is her favorite, and he and Phil are like twin brothers. And now, if you're ready, Magdalen, we'll go down, for we've been chatting till it's six o'clock, and I ordered supper at six."
Magdalen smiled. The chatting had been a very one-sided affair, and Miss Winters had poured forth these little family details with a volubility it would have been cruel to check.
Tea was waiting, and so was Mr. Barstone, rather impatiently.
"I thought you two young ladies had retired for the night," he said. "Miss Wayne, has Fanny been giving you the autobiography of our family and every other family in Millford during the last hour?"
"Now, George," cried Miss Winters, reproachfully, "how can you! I never said a word about the families of Millford—did I, Magdalen? And I don't think you need be always throwing my talk in my face, because you generally have a good deal to say yourself. Magdalen," whisking suddenly about, "let's take a walk by the lake after tea. It's such a dear, romantic, dismal spot that I love to go there. It makes me always think of lonely murders and suicides and kind of chills one's blood, you know."
"An excellent reason for taking Miss Wayne there," said George Barstone, gravely. "It is suggestive of chills and fever, I think myself. And as for murders and suicides, it has been the scene of more than one tragedy."
Supper over, the trio left the house for their saunter to the lake. The red glory of the June sunset blazed over land and lake and kindled both into luminous splendor.
"Golden Willows—poetical and appropriate," said Magdalen. "I never saw a prettier place."
"But horribly dull," said Fanny. "I thought it sweetly pretty the first time I saw it, too; but after being cooped up four years, its beauties begin to pall a little. Perhaps Mariana thought the Moated Grange a pretty place at first, though she got sick enough of it after, poor thing! But my seventeenth birthday comes in September, and Aunt Lydia shall have no peace until she consents to let me have a party. She doesn't like parties, but she must consent if I keep on tormenting her long enough. I'll begin to-morrow."
They were walking down the green avenue that led to the lake, while Fanny chattered. A delightful avenue, shaded and cool, with birds twittering in the branches, and the red lances of the sunset shooting athwart the greenish gloom.
"A pleasant promenade, is it not, Miss Wayne?" said Mr. Barstone, "secluded and sentimental and that kind of thing. This is where Fanny takes my cousin Phil, when she wants to quote Tennyson and Owen Meredith to him, and get him to make love to her. Did you wring a proposal out of him Fan, before you let him go?"
"Now, George!" in shrill reproach, and reddening violently; "I'm ashamed of you. What will Miss Wayne think? If Phil and I do walk here sometimes, it's because he likes to smoke under the trees, and I don't mind cigar smoke a bit, and I go with him because one must have some one to talk to. I'm sure I wish you and he could change places. He's worth a dozen of you, and so you'll say, Magdalen, when you see him."
"Think better of Miss Magdalen's judgment, Fanny; I don't believe she'll say anything of the sort."
They sauntered along the edge of the lake, lying dark and somber and deserted, until Miss Winters complaining of fatigue, they returned. The early rising moon was lifting its silvery disc over the hilltops, and the white, bright evening star, swung in the azure beside it.
"It's so nice," sighed Miss Winters, with a languishing glance at the moon. "I do not like moonlight, of all things. One could almost fancy it Venice, if these hills were palaces and the trees churches and the lake a canal and the shadows gondolas. It must be lovely to live in Venice—among doges, bridges of sighs and guitars and gondolas and things. Can you sing 'Now Rest Thee Here, My Gondolier,' Magdalen? I dote on Moore's Melodies, though George says they're mawkish and love-sick. But then, George has no more soul than a kangaroo! I dare say," cried Fanny, with a reproachful glance at the gentleman, "he would like to smoke this minute."
"I certainly should," responded Mr. Barstone, promptly, "and, with Miss Wayne's permission, I will. May I? A thousand thanks!"
It was nearly nine when they returned to the house, and Magdalen retired at once—retired with the fag end of a tune on her lips and a happy glow at her heart, to sleep soundly and sweetly as a tired child.
She arose late next morning, and ere she had finished dressing Fanny's voice was heard at the door:
"Are you up yet, Magdalen? Because, if you are, I want to come in."
"Come in, then."
Miss Winters entered, voluminous in clean starched muslin and fluttering with pink ribbons, her face a-shine with good humor, cold water and honey soap.
"How did you sleep?" inquired the young girl; "well, I should think, by your face and the hour you get up. It's half-past eight, and our breakfast hour, and George is waiting; so please hurry—there's a dear!"
They descended to breakfast, to find Mr. Barstone whistling to the canaries while he waited. Immediately after the meal he departed, on foot, for his office in Millford, and Fanny bore off her governess to see "Aunt Lydia."
Miss Barstone—for Aunt Lydia was Miss Barstone at five-and-forty—was seated over her breakfast when they entered the room. A large apartment, more like a library than a sleeping room, pictures and books and busts and flowers and birds everywhere. Miss Barstone—a little body, with a pale, pinched face, keen eyes and a resolute mouth—held out her hand and greeted Magdalen kindly.
"You are Miss Wayne? How do you do, my dear? You are very welcome to Golden Willows. Take this armchair, Miss Wayne."
Magdalen seated herself. The searching look of the bright, keen eyes fluttered her a little, but the frank smile was very like her nephew's.
"I couldn't see you yesterday, my dear—I was poorly, very poorly, indeed. I'm a confirmed invalid, you know. I never quit my chamber, and a little thing upsets me. My nephew Philip's sudden departure was a shock—I had hoped he would stay for the summer. My dear, what a very pretty girl you are!"
Magdalen blushed and laughed.
"George and Fanny both told me, but I really didn't expect—excuse me, my dear, it sounds like flattery; but I don't mean it so. You are a great deal too young and too handsome to be a governess. How old are you?"
"Why, Aunt Lydia," exclaimed Fanny, "you know George told us in his letter. She's eighteen."
"Too young! too young! And you've been a governess over a year? Ah! poor thing! It's a hard life, and you don't look fitted for a hard life. I hope you'll be happy here."
"Dear Madam!" Magdalen said, the tears in her eyes, "I know I shall."
"And you are an orphan, Miss Wayne?"
"Yes, Miss Barstone," very sadly.
"Any relatives, my dear?"
"I have a brother, poor fellow!" Magdalen said, hurriedly; "but I hardly dare hope ever to see him again, and I have a baby niece, with an old nurse, away in New Hampshire, my native State. That is all."
"Poor child! But you and Fanny will sympathize with each other, for she is an orphan, too. Not a very forlorn looking one, though, is she? You must be very strict and severe with her, Miss Wayne, for she's a shockingly idle, heedless girl. You know you are, Fanny!" said Miss Barstone, with a backward frown at the culprit hanging over her chair.
"Yes, I know," said Fanny; "but it's nice to be idle, and you don't like me any the worse for it. Now, if you're done with Magdalen, I'll take her out for a drive. It isn't worth while commencing to study in the fag end of the week."
She bore her off into her own maiden bower, all one litter of albums, novels and half-finished fancy work, while she dressed for the drive.
On their way down she flung open another door, disclosing a large, elegantly furnished room, handsomer than any Magdalen had yet seen.
"This is the spare room," said Fanny; "never to be used until Phil or George get married. It's sacred ground, this—dedicated to the future Mrs. B."
"It is very pretty," said Magdalen, carelessly. "When is it likely to be occupied?"
"I'm sure I don't know," replied Miss Winters, shaking her curls, "George will live and die a crusty, musty, cranky, cross old bachelor, and as for Phil—well, I can't say. Half the girls in Millford are dying for him."
"Fanny Winters among the number?"
"Nonsense!" said Fanny, very pink of face indeed. "There's Bill waiting with the horse and buggy. Come on—I'll show all that's worth showing in the neighborhood."
It was a pleasant day, the first of many pleasant days. And Magdalen Allward's new life began under a summer sky without a cloud—to be all the blacker when the clouds came.
