Читать книгу The Child Wife - Майн Рид - Страница 16

“An officer just returned from Mexico—a captain, or something of the sort, in one of the regiments raised for the war. Of course, a nobody!”

It was the storekeeper’s relict who spoke.

“Did you hear his name, mamma?” murmured Julia.

“Certainly, my dear. The clerk pointed it out on the hotel register—Maynard.”

“Maynard! If it be the Captain Maynard spoken of in the papers, he’s not such a nobody. At least the despatches do not say so. Why, it was he who led the forlorn hope at C—, besides being first over the bridge at some other place with an unpronounceable name?”

“Stuff about forlorn hopes and bridges! That won’t help him, now that he is out of the service, and his regiment disbanded. Of course he’ll be without either pension or pay, besides a soupçon of his having empty pockets. I got so much out of the servant who waits upon him.”

“He is to be pitied for that.”

“Pity him as much as you like, my dear; but don’t let it go any further. Heroes are all very well in their way, when they’ve got the dollars to back ’em up. Without these they don’t count for much now-a-days; and rich girls don’t go marrying them any more.”

“Ha! ha! ha! Who thinks of marrying him?” Daughter and niece simultaneously asked the question.

“No flirtations neither,” gravely rejoined Mrs Girdwood. “I won’t allow them—certainly not with him.”

“And why not with him, as much as any one else, most honoured mother?”

“Many reasons. We don’t know who or what he may be. He don’t appear to have the slightest acquaintance with any one in the place; and no one is acquainted with him. He’s a stranger in this country, and believed to be Irish.”

“Oh, aunt! I should not think any the worse of him for that. My own father was Irish.”

“Whatever he may be, he’s a brave man, and a gallant one,” quietly rejoined Julia.

“And a handsome one, too!” added Cornelia, with a sly glance towards her cousin.

“I should think,” pursued Julia, “that he who has climbed a scaling-ladder—to say nothing about the bridge—and who afterward, at the risk of his life, pulls two not very light young ladies up the face of a perpendicular precipice, might dispense with any farther introduction to society; even to the J.’s, the L.’s, and the B.’s—the ‘cream,’ as they call themselves.”

“Pff!” scornfully exclaimed the mother. “Any gentleman would have done the same; and would have done it for any lady. Why, he made no difference between you and Keziah, who is almost as heavy as both of you in a bundle!”

The remark caused the two young ladies to break forth into a fit of laughter; for they remembered at the time they had been saved from their peril the ludicrous look of the negress as she was drawn up to the crest of the cliff. Had she not been the last in the ascent, their remembrance of it might have been less vivid.

“Well, girls; I’m glad to see that you enjoy it. You may laugh as much as you like; but I’m in earnest. There must be no marrying in such a quarter as that, nor flirting either. I don’t want either of you talked about. As for you, Corneel, I don’t pretend to exercise any control over you. Of course you can act as you please.”

“And I cannot?” quickly inquired the imperious Julia.

“Yes you can, my dear. Marry Captain Maynard, or any other man who suits your fancy. But if you do so without my consent, you may make up your mind to be contented with your pin-money. Remember that the million left by your father is mine for life.”

“Indeed!”

“Ay! And if you act against my wishes, I shall live thirty years longer, to spite you—fifty if I can!”

“Well, mamma; I can’t say but that you’re candid. A charming prospect, should it please me to disobey you?”

“But you won’t, Julia?” said Mrs Girdwood, coaxingly, “you won’t. You know better than that: else your dear mother’s teaching has been so much waste time and trouble. But talking of time,” continued the “dear mother,” as she drew a jewelled watch from her belt, “in two hours the ball will begin. Go to your room, and get dressed.”

Cornelia, obedient to the command, tripped out into the corridor, and, gliding along it, turned into the apartment occupied by herself and cousin.

Julia, on the contrary, walked on to the balcony outside.

“Plague take the ball!” said she, raising her arms in a yawn. “I’d a thousand times rather go to bed?”

“And why, you silly child?” inquired her mother, who had followed her out.

“Mother, you know why! It will be just the same as at the last one—all alone among those impertinent people. I hate them! How I should like to humiliate them!”

“To-night you shall do that, my dear.”

“How, mamma?”

“By wearing my diamond head-dress. The last present your dear father gave me. It cost him a twenty thousand dollar cheque! If we could only ticket the price upon the diamonds, how they would glitter in their envious eyes. Never mind; I should think they’ll be sharp enough to guess it. Now, my girl, that will humiliate them!”

“Not much.”

“Not much! Twenty thousand dollars worth of diamonds! There isn’t such a tiara in the States. There won’t be anything like it at the ball. As diamonds are in full fashion now, it will give you no end of a triumph; at all events, enough to satisfy you for the present. Perhaps when we come back here again, we may have the diamonds set in a still more attractive shape.”

“How?”

“In a coronet!” replied the mother, whispering the words in her daughter’s ear.

Julia Girdwood started, as if the speech had been an interpretation of her own thought. Brought up amid boundless wealth, she had been indulged in every luxury for which gold may be exchanged; but there was one which even gold could not purchase—an entrée into that mystic circle called “society”—a mingling with the crême de la crême.

Even in the free-and-easy atmosphere of a watering-place, she felt that she was excluded. She had discovered, as had also her mother, that Newport was too fashionable for the family of a New York retail storekeeper, however successful he may have been in disposing of his commodities. What her mother had just said was like the realisation of a vague vision already floating in her fancy; and the word “coronet” had more effect in spoiling the chances of Captain Maynard, than would have been the longest maternal lecture on any other text.

The mother well knew this. She had not trained her dear Julia to romantic disobedience. But at that moment it occurred to her that the nail wanted clinching; and she proceeded to hammer it home.

“A coronet, my love; and why not? There are lords in England, and counts in France, scores of them, glad to grasp at such expectations as yours. A million of dollars, and beauty besides—you needn’t blush, daughter—two things not often tacked together, nor to be picked up every day in the streets—either of London or Paris. A prize for a prince! And now, Julia, one word more. I shall be candid, and tell you the truth. It is for this purpose, and this only, I intend taking you to Europe. Promise to keep your heart free, and give your hand to the man I select for you, and on your wedding-day I shall make over one-half of the estate left by your late father!”

The girl hesitated. Perhaps she was thinking of her late rescuer? But if Maynard was in her mind, the interest he had gained there could only have been slight—certainly not strong enough to hold its place against the tempting terms thus held out to her. Besides, Maynard might not care for her. She had no reason to suppose that he did. And under this doubt, she had less difficulty in shaping her reply.

“I am serious upon this matter,” urged the ambitious mother. “Quite as much as you am I disgusted with the position we hold here. To think that the most worthless descendants of one of ‘the old signers’ should deem it a condescension to marry my daughter! Ach! not one of them shall—with my consent.”

“Without that, mother, I shall not marry.”

“Good girl! you shall have the wedding gift I promised you. And to-night you shall not only wear my diamonds, but I make you free to call them your own. Go in—get them on?”