Читать книгу The Adventures of an Ugly Girl - Mrs. George Corbett - Страница 5

Table of Contents

My life seemed strangely quiet without Jerry for the next few days, and I longed all the more to console myself with Bobby and Teddy. But one gets used to the absence of anybody in time, and Lady Elizabeth’s arrangements were so promotive of the comfort and pleasure of all with whom she lived that it would have seemed ungrateful of me to suggest that I should be glad when the time came to go back to the Grange. Still, it was true that, apart from the loss of Jerry’s companionship, I had conceived a desire to leave Sunny Knowe. The Earl of Greatlands had become unpleasantly effusive to me. He was constantly paying me compliments, which were all the more galling as they were made with a perfectly grave mien. Had Belle been the recipient, there would have been nothing objectionable about them, as she could have received them in the full conviction that they were honestly meant. But for me, whose ugliness was proverbial, to be addressed as “pretty dear” and “dainty dove,” was very bitter indeed; for it was bad enough to be fully conscious of a total absence of all that was dainty and pretty, without being publicly satirized, and held up to the unfeeling laughter of Belle and her admirer, Lord Egreville.

One afternoon my temper, which of late had lain in abeyance, reasserted itself in a startling manner. We were all in the drawing-room, with several of the neighboring gentry, who had come over to confabulate about some tableaux vivants that there had been some talk of getting up. Several satisfactory groups had been decided upon; but, apparently by common consent, nobody had suggested that I should take a part in the performances, until the earl remarked: “Look here, there seems to be a strange want of judgment among you. You have left the flower of the flock out of your calculations, and I propose that she and I represent ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ I can soon dress up as the ‘Beast,’ and she can fill her part satisfactorily.”

“And pray who is the ‘flower of the flock’?” said Belle, who was to represent “Guinevere.”

“Who else, but winsome Dora?” retorted the earl, whereat there was an undisguised laugh on the part of Belle and a few more of her caliber, while the rest smiled in good-natured toleration of so palpable an absurdity. Just for one instant I turned sick with humiliation. Then I walked up to the earl, and, with my eyes flashing angrily, hissed rather than said: ‘You are an old man, my lord. I am but a young girl. You think that you may hold me up to ridicule and laughter with impunity. But I vow you shall do so no longer. Shall I tell you what I will do if you dare to insult me in that manner again?’

“Dora, how dare you!” exclaimed my father angrily. “If you have forgotten how to behave yourself, I must request you to go to your own room at once.—I told you how it would be,” he remarked to Lady Elizabeth.

“Tut, tut!” put in the earl. “Let the girl alone, Courtney. This little bit of an outburst is my especial prerogative, and I would like to hear the whole of it. What will you do if I repeat the kind of conversation which seems to rouse your ire? Why shouldn’t I call you a beauty?”

“Because I have a right to demand that you should cease to satirize my unfortunate appearance, and because I will no longer submit quietly to listen to compliments which become insults when applied to me.”

“But you have not yet told me how you will prevent me from saying just what I please.”

“If you are so little of a gentleman as to repeat your conduct, I will—I will slap your face!”

“This is too disgraceful!” interposed my father again. “Once more, Dora—”

“I have to beg you once more to permit me to finish this little affair in my own way,” said the earl, who was actually laughing, so utterly insignificant and childish did he deem my anger. “So you would slap my face, eh? Well, there’s nothing would please me better. I like a girl with some go in her. And you know you really are the nicest, bonniest—”

Five minutes later I was in my own room, feeling thoroughly ashamed of myself. I had not permitted the Earl of Greatlands to finish his preposterous compliment. But I certainly had disgraced myself in the eyes of my father, of Lady Elizabeth, and of sundry other people who witnessed my exit from the drawing-room and its predisposing cause. For I had really slapped the old earl’s face, even as I had threatened to do. He would probably not annoy me in the same way again. Indeed, it was problematical if he would ever speak to me again; for, after all, my conduct must seem inexcusable in the opinion of all but myself. For how could I expect any one else to understand how bitter it was to me to have my lack of comeliness held up to the laughter and contumely of more favored mortals.

Next morning, when I came down to breakfast, I found my father awaiting my advent in the morning room, and braced myself for the reprimand which I knew to be inevitable. Said reprimand was even more severe than I had anticipated, but my affectionate parent displayed such a total lack of the consideration which I felt was the due of my own wounded feelings, that, somehow, I no longer felt sorry for what I had done, but maliciously resolved to adopt equally drastic measures if ever I should be insulted in like manner again.

“I was never so ashamed in my life,” supplemented Belle, who had come in while my father was talking, and had listened with a smile to his lecture.

“I am glad to hear you say so,” said the voice of Lady Elizabeth. “It really was a shame to laugh when you saw how Dorrie was being tormented.”

“Indeed, it is Dora I was ashamed of, not myself. It is not likely that I shall ever disgrace myself in like manner.” So said Belle, and then the very absurdity of the suggestion that she would ever be tormented for the same reason that I had been provoked the girl to irresistible laughter, and served to prove how utterly heartless she could really be where my feelings were concerned.

That afternoon the earl rode over to Sunny Knowe and surprised me by greeting me even more cordially than ever. Evidently he thought me too insignificant and childish to be offended with, while I considered that the best thing I could do would be to make no further allusion to yesterday’s contretemps. He did not seem inclined to tease me any more, and the remainder of that day passed pleasantly, as did many more ere we returned to the Grange.

When at last we were installed in our old home again, we were astonished at the wonderful improvements that money and taste had been able to effect in and around it. It was now a grand old place, worthy of the imposing view it commanded and the fine trees by which its grounds were dotted. My father both looked and felt like a rich landed proprietor, as he surveyed the realm which, thanks to Lady Elizabeth’s income, he would be able to support in a style becoming the dignity of the Courtneys, who had once owned all the land for miles around. A new wing had been added, for the comfort of Lady Elizabeth, whose rooms were situated here, and who had brought such a quantity of beautiful new furniture with her that the Grange was a veritable palace of delight to Belle and myself, who had never known anything but shabby surroundings. My bedroom was now of my own choosing, and had been furnished exactly like Belle’s.

I wrote glowing accounts to Jerry of all that was being done, and was especially careful to give him full details concerning Bobby and Teddy, and the rats and rabbits. Poor Jerry! he was to have come home for the Christmas holidays, and they were close at hand when a serious accident befell him. He had been too venturesome in some of the school sports, with the result that he had a severe fall and fractured his right leg. His father was telegraphed for at once and lost no time in reaching him. Meanwhile, the boy had been treated by a skillful surgeon, and there was every prospect of his progressing satisfactorily toward recovery. But it was deemed inadvisable to move him at present, so poor Jerry had to forego his anticipated holiday at home.

“I felt awfully sorry for Kendall,” he wrote in his weekly letter home, “because his father and mother were dead, and he would have to spend his holidays at school. Now I am jolly well glad, for he will be company for me.”

It must not be imagined that Jerry was particularly selfish in expressing himself thus. It was only his youthful vagueness that was at fault. The writing, under the circumstances, was hardly legible. But I thought it very brave of the child to write at all.

Meanwhile, Christmas approached and passed with comparative uneventfulness. True, Lord Egreville had proposed to Belle. But she had declined to give him a definite answer, on the plea that she was too young to be engaged just now; the truth being that she was determined not to labor under the disadvantage of being already out of the running when she went to London for the season.

A house in town had been rented for us, and in due course we all migrated thither. I had hardly expected to be introduced to London society yet, and Belle openly grumbled at the idea. But Lady Elizabeth generally got her own way in everything, and when she intimated that there was no reason why I should not enjoy myself like the rest there was no opposition from my father. Arrived in London, however, I found that people were by no means inclined to make a fuss over me, while the “beautiful” Miss Courtney was fêted and courted to her heart’s content.

Still, the proposals she had confidently expected were somewhat chary in realizing themselves, and when they did come they were not as superlatively tempting as they might have been. The fact was, it was pretty generally known that Belle would have no dowry to speak of, and though plenty of young aristocrats admired her immensely, they deemed it advisable to offer their affections and society at the shrine of Mammon. There were a couple of millionaires in the market. But, incredible as it seemed to Belle, there were other girls in London whose physical charms equaled her own, and to these other girls the millionaires succumbed.

Belle fumed. Belle raged. Belle almost anathematized. Belle hated her victorious rivals. But Belle was wily, and presented an unruffled front in the presence of Lady Elizabeth and her relatives. She made the most of the proposals she did get, but professed her inability to love the proposers. Love, indeed! Could such a beautiful sentiment find an entrance into her cold breast? Impossible! What she coveted was wealth and station, and when, toward the end of the season, Lord Egreville’s proved to be the most eligible offer, she accepted him, and had the felicity of seeing her engagement recorded in all the society papers.

I had an idea that the Earl of Greatlands did not care much for Belle, but had never presumed to give utterance to my suspicion. Lady Elizabeth, however, was not quite so reticent.

“I wish you every happiness, dear,” she said to Belle, kissing her warmly, “and I think that you and Cyril will prove very congenial companions; but I am not sure that my father will like to see any mistress at the castle, other than his own wife, so long as he lives.”

“But your father has not got a wife!” exclaimed Belle, with rising resentment at what she considered Lady Elizabeth’s presumption; for, by her engagement to her brother, she was prospectively lifted to the same plane of relationship, and but for the favors which her stepmother could bestow upon her, she would at once have merged the respect due to a mother in the aggressive equality which she deemed a sister-in-law’s meed.

Lady Elizabeth’s reply startled us all.

“He has no wife at present,” she said, “but I have good reason for asserting that he contemplates marriage at an early date, provided the lady of his choice condescends to accept him.”

“Condescends to accept him!” I knew very well what was the gist of Belle’s thoughts, as she sat with a sullen and dismayed face, without making even a pretense of eating the dainty fare which lay on her breakfast plate.

Who wouldn’t condescend to accept him? Wasn’t he nearly seventy years old? And wasn’t he likely to die ere many years were over, leaving his widow in the untrammeled possession of a title that would give her the entrée to any society? He was sure, too, to scrape and save all he could to provide for his widow after his death, and that would mean a considerable curtailment of the allowance which Lord Egreville looked for on his marriage. Besides, if the earl brought a countess to the castle, and Lord Egreville was asked to retire to the dower-house with his bride, her position would be by no means so imposing as she had expected it to be. Residence at the castle, as its nominal mistress, had been one of Lord Egreville’s special pleas when urging his suit, and, next to the acquisition of the secondary title, with the prospect of a succession to the primary one, had been one of her chief reasons for considering him much more of an eligible parti than her other suitors.

And then, oh, horror! suppose the earl’s new wife should be young! Suppose there should actually be a child born! Why Cyril would be still further despoiled to provide for the bringing up of the little brat. True, he could not be robbed of his prospective right to the earldom, as he was the eldest son. But an active fancy could easily picture no end of humiliations for him and his wife, if the foolish old earl were permitted to bring his infatuation for some pretty face into fruition.

That these thoughts flew through Belle’s brain in the sequence in which I have recorded them is more than I am able to vouch for. But I knew her temperament and disposition so well that I had no hesitation in guessing the direction of her reflections.

“I believe you are just saying all this to try me,” she said at last, looking up at Lady Elizabeth with a face from which she was trying to banish some of the shadows. “Now I come to think of it, he spends the greater part of his time with us, and if he were attracted by anybody in London, he would be more likely to seek her society than ours.”

Lady Elizabeth smiled very mysteriously, but did not vouchsafe a more explicit reply.

“Papa,” said Belle, impatiently, “suppose you look up from that stupid paper and take a little intelligent interest in what is going on around you. It’s perfectly exasperating to see you absorbed in an account of a shooting or fishing expedition, when the future of your eldest daughter is being discussed.”

“My eldest daughter, eh? To be sure, I have two daughters, but the future of one of them is considerably in embryo yet, I should imagine. And what do you wish me particularly to say?”

“Have you known anything of the earl’s intention to get married?”

“Well, really, now you mention it, I did hear some time ago that he was on the lookout for a suitable spouse, but I fancy the old party hasn’t turned up yet.”

“Just what I think. Lady Elizabeth has simply been teasing me.”

“Why, my dear, do you happen to know anything definite about the matter?”

Appealed to thus directly, Lady Elizabeth replied guardedly, “I have really been given to understand that my father would like to get married. But I am not at liberty to disclose the name of the lady whom he would like to marry.”

“At least tell me whether she is old or young,” appealed Belle, anxiously.

“Oh, she is several years younger than my father, I believe.”

With this answer Belle was forced to be satisfied, and shortly afterward we all left the breakfast-room.

As for me, I had listened to the foregoing conversation with considerable interest, but not with the absorbed attention which might perhaps have been aroused in me, if I had had the least idea that the doings of the Earl of Greatlands could possibly affect myself. After all, I was really sorry for Belle. But perhaps the earl’s marriage might not affect her so adversely as she feared.

At eleven o’clock Lord Egreville came to see Belle. I do not know the exact purport of their conversation with each other, but I do know that when Belle’s fiancé left the drawing-room he looked much less pleasant than when he entered it, and hardly seemed to have time to speak to the earl, who was announced at this juncture. Thinking I would have an hour’s uninterrupted practice on my violin, I went up to my own room, but was summoned thence by-and-by.

“Please, Miss Dora,” said Lady Elizabeth’s maid, “you are wanted in the library.”

“I am wanted in the library!” I echoed, in surprise. “Why, who can possibly want me?”

“I do not know. It was milady who sent me to ask you to go down to the library.”

“Is Lady Elizabeth there?”

“No, she is in her boudoir. Mr. Courtney is with her.”

At first it struck me as very singular that there should be a caller who wished to see me alone, and then I reflected that my music-master had perhaps found it inconvenient to give me my music lesson at the usual hour, and had come to ask me to change the time. Full of this thought, I hurried downstairs, but was very much surprised to be confronted, not by Signor Tringini, but by the Earl of Greatlands.

“My dear child, how astonished you look,” he said, as, coming forward and taking my hand, he conducted me courteously to a seat.

“Well,” I replied, “I cannot conceive what can be your object in desiring an interview with me. But perhaps there has been a mistake, and it is Belle you want.”

“Indeed, it is not Belle I want, but your very own self.”

“I hope I have not been doing anything to call forth your particular displeasure. I have really tried to be on my best behavior with everybody since I came to London.”

“You have not displeased me yet. But you will displease me very much, if you refuse to grant the request I have come to make of you.”

“Then I will do the best I can to avert your threatened displeasure by promising to grant your request beforehand.”

“Ah, my dear, if I were inclined to take an unfair advantage, I would rejoice exceedingly over that promise. As it is, I am terribly afraid that you may retract it. Do you happen to have heard of my intention to get married, if I can persuade a certain lady to accept me?”

“Yes, Lady Elizabeth spoke of it this morning. But she would not give us any clew to the lady’s identity, and I, at least, am very curious about her. I hope she is a nice old lady, and that she will like me. You see, she will be a sort of grandmother-in-law to me—with your permission.”

“Grandmother fiddlesticks! She isn’t old enough to be anybody’s grandmother. Can’t you guess who it is?”

“Why, no. How should I? I do not know so very many of your friends, and I really do not know anybody that would seem to be a suitable Countess of Greatlands.”

“Well, it seems to me that for all-round obtuseness you beat everything! Do you think it likely that I would seek a private interview with you, in order to tell you of my intention to ask some one else to marry me?”

“Then why have you come to see me?”

“Why? Only to ask you to take pity on a lonely old man, and marry him. Look here, child, don’t jump up and look angry, for I really mean it. You are the only woman I would care to marry, and if you refuse to marry me I will have nobody else.”

“Good gracious! how can a girl marry her grandfather? Do you forget that you are my stepmother’s father?”

“And what of that? We are not really related. Now don’t be hasty, my dear. Think of all I can do for you, and of all you can do for me. You shall have anything and everything you want, and be presented at Court. As the Countess of Greatlands you will be courted and sought after. But you can do much more for me than that. You can make the short span of life which yet remains to me perfectly happy. Say yes, my dear, and my love and gratitude will know no bounds.”

But I could not say yes for a while. Yet neither could I say no. My astonishment was almost too great for words. Still, I was not displeased at the dazzling prospect held out to me. Reflect, dear reader, before you blame, that I had always been told that I need never hope to win the affection of any man, and that, while those around me basked in the sunshine of family joys, the man did not exist who would care to cast in his lot with mine. True, this man was old, and he was almost decrepit. But he had singled me out from the many others who would gladly have become Countess of Greatlands. In doing so, he had done me an honor of which I was fully sensible, and it was such a joy to me to have become the best beloved of even an old man that my heart prompted me to say “yes,” as he desired.

Still, certain scruples would obtrude themselves upon my notice, and counseled a little hesitation.

“Belle?” I faltered at last. “I cannot! It would make such a difference to Belle.”

“It will not make the slightest difference to Belle, I assure you, Dorrie. She is too vain and frivolous for me to care about living in the same house with her. Whether I marry or not, Cyril and she will have to content themselves with the dower-house during my lifetime. It is the same with the title. They cannot have it until I am gone, and your present possession of it will not keep them out of it one day after it accrues to them. Come, my dear, end my suspense, and keep the promise you made me a while ago.”

“My father? And Lady Elizabeth?”

“Have no solid objections to offer.”

Neither had I after that. But, somehow, the enraptured kiss with which my old lover sealed our engagement was not the sort of thing I had pictured in my day-dreams, and I involuntarily shivered under his caresses.

“What is it, my little pet, are you cold?” he asked solicitously.

“Just a little,” was my evasive answer. “This room always seems chilly. But that does not matter. Tell me, for it seems so strange, how it is that you actually want to marry me, of all people in the world. Look how ugly I am!”

“You are not ugly to me, my dear. Besides, I am past thinking outward appearance the sole recommendation and guarantee of a happy life. I need more than mere outward beauty.”

“And you think you have found it?”

“I am sure I have found it! And now, my love, with your permission, I will remain here until your father comes. I shall see you again later in the day.”

Having thus virtually received my dismissal, I sped up to my own room, but not before my ardent lover had claimed another kiss as his due.

Did I feel glad?

Or did I feel dismayed?

I was really unable to tell myself which sensation predominated. I met Belle on the landing, and was conscious of a strange feeling of trepidation, which made me slink into my own room like some one guilty of a mean action.

Oh, dear! how could I ever face them all? I thought. How could I ever have the presumption to pose as the superior in rank and family prestige to my beloved stepmother? Why, if I married her father, I should be her stepmother. And my sister’s mother-in-law! And my father’s mother-in-law, too! And—could it be possible?—my own step-grandmother! There were no end of complications involved in the new arrangement; and, as I pondered over them, I became more and more doubtful as to the propriety of accepting the grand future held out to me. And yet, if I could do so without repugnance on my part, and with an honest determination to prove that the earl had acted wisely in selecting me as the wife of his old age, why should I not become a great lady? Why—

But my conjectures were interrupted at this juncture by a very unusual event. Belle had actually come to visit me in my own room! I knew instinctively, however, that her visit boded me no good, and when I looked up into her face, I saw that she was in a demoniacal temper.

“Is it true?” she cried, as she flung herself on a chair just in front of me. “Is it true that you have actually deluded that old imbecile into offering marriage to you? My father has just told me that you are to become the Countess of Greatlands at a very early date. But the news is too monstrous for belief! A hideous little reptile like you to lord it over me! A shrimp of a girl, whose gauchérie and ill-manners are proverbial, to dare to assume airs of superiority over me! I tell you it shall not be. I will not have it. Sooner than endure such a humiliation I would—I would—”

“And pray what would you do?” I asked, not with the compunction I had felt a while ago at the idea of relegating my beautiful sister to a secondary position. Nor yet with the anger which had blazed up in me on hearing the commencement of her virago-like harangue. But with the cool contempt of one who feels that her position is impregnable, and that her assailant is beneath consideration. “And how will you prevent an arrangement with which you are not of sufficient importance to be permitted to interfere?”

Perhaps it was astonishment at the unwonted courage with which I met her assault. Perhaps it was a sudden access of prudence. But whatever the cause, the effect was the same. Belle declined to tell me how she would prevent my marriage with the earl. But she continued to revile me for some minutes as treacherous, deceitful and scheming, and wound up by saying that I need not congratulate myself upon my seeming triumph, as Lord Egreville would certainly not permit his father to perpetrate the folly he contemplated, even if he had to swear that he was no longer responsible for his actions.

To all this I steadfastly refused any further reply, and, becoming tired of leveling abuse which seemed to make no impression, Belle left the room as suddenly as she had entered it. Once alone, I found that my own feelings with regard to the coming event had undergone a complete revolution. I no longer entertained the slightest doubt as to the propriety of having consented to accept the earl. On the contrary, I was strongly determined to fulfill my promise, and to remove myself forever from the tyranny of Belle’s reproaches and airs of superiority. Very much to my own surprise, too, I felt very indignant at the slights cast upon the earl, and found my heart warm considerably toward him. For, when I came to think of it, he had always treated me kindly, and even when I thought he was deliberately insulting me, he must really have meant what he said. That his taste was peculiar, to say the least, was patent even to myself, but that was all the more reason for gratitude and love on my part.

Gratitude? Yes, that was undoubted. Love? Why not? Surely it is not so very hard for the one to engender the other.

Presently Lady Elizabeth came to my door and asked my permission to enter. This was readily given, though I already felt very much overwrought, and dreaded the coming interview. But I need not have been uneasy about that; for, as usual, my good stepmother had only my welfare at heart.

“I am afraid Belle has been giving you an uncomfortable time of it,” she said, drawing a chair toward me and kissing me affectionately. “She is fuming in the drawing-room, and has sent for Cyril to consult with him as to what is best to be done in this remarkable crisis.”

“And you?” I asked beseechingly. “Do you think I have been a scheming, wicked girl, and that I have done wrong in accepting the earl?”

“Certainly not, my child. I have known for some time that my father wished to make you his wife. Indeed, he consulted me as to the wisdom of doing so, and I gave my unqualified approval to his project. Seeing that he had set his heart on having a young wife, I preferred to see you in that capacity rather than any one else. But I hope that you are fully alive to the duties that will be expected of you.”

“Indeed yes,” I answered soberly. “I mean to do all in my power to make the earl happy.”

“That is right. If you think only of promoting his happiness, your own will come, as a matter of course. But tell me, have you any idea that the ceremony is expected to take place almost immediately?”

“Oh no! how can it? I am too young yet to marry.”

“My dear, in a case like this the bride’s youth counts for nothing, and the bridegroom’s age carries all other considerations before it. Your father also agrees that it is best to make immediate arrangements, and there is really no reason why you should not be married next week.”

And somehow it was all decided, almost without referring again to me, that on the following Wednesday I should be transformed into the Countess of Greatlands. I have no doubt that society partially echoed Belle’s sneers and voted the earl half crazy. But if it did, its criticisms did not trouble me, and I was supremely happy as I reveled in the lavish preparations that were being made for the great event. Belle’s wedding was indefinitely postponed, although it had at first been spoken of as an almost immediate event.

So far as I could judge, Lord Egreville was as bitterly opposed to the earl’s wedding as Belle was. He was just distantly civil to me, and I took no trouble to ingratiate myself with him. Sometimes, when the couple sat whispering in a corner, I surprised an occasional glance that was positively malignant in its intensity of hatred. Once or twice I remembered my sister’s assertion that she would prevent my marriage, and wondered vaguely if she were really hatching some plot against me. Then a certainty that it was out of her power to harm me consoled me once more, and I pursued the happy tenor of my way, all my time occupied either by the earl’s visits or by my initiation into further gayeties of attire.

The wedding itself was to be a very quiet affair, and as soon as it was over my husband was going to take me into Derbyshire for a week. Then we were to go to the castle, which was being rapidly prepared for my reception.

And so the time flew on, until Tuesday came round once more. To-morrow was to be my wedding day.

To-morrow! Oh, that dreadful to-morrow! Shall I ever forget it as long as I live?