Kitabı oku: «Lancaster's Choice», sayfa 2

CHAPTER V

"I'll be shot!" ejaculated Captain Lancaster, in a voice of the liveliest exasperation.

"Oh, no; what have you done?" exclaimed his chum, lifting his handsome head from his lounge amid a cloud of curling, blue cigar-smoke.

"Nothing; I never did anything in my life," in an injured tone, "and I am fain to ask why I am so bitterly persecuted."

"Persecuted?" inquired De Vere, languidly.

"Oh, yes, you can afford to be cool. You are the legal heir to ten thousand a year. You are not at the beck and call of a relative who gives you the most troublesome commissions to execute without so much as saying 'by your leave,'" growled Lancaster.

The young lieutenant laughed lazily.

"You have had a letter from my lady?" he said.

"Yes. Look here, De Vere, I wonder if she thinks I belong to her wholly? Must one be a white slave for the sake of coming into twenty thousand a year?"

"It is worth lots of toadying," declared De Vere, emphatically.

"I used to like Aunt Lydia—rather—before my uncle died," said Lancaster, reflectively. "She was always tart and waspish. I didn't care for it when I didn't have to bear the brunt of it. She rather amused me then, but now I get out of patience with her whims and exactions."

"What is it she wants now?" asked Harry De Vere, lazily.

"It is something I have to carry home to her from New York. By Jove! I have a great mind to refuse. Anything in reason I would willingly undertake; but, ah, really, this is too bad!" groaned the victim, dropping his head back among the cushions of his chair.

It was a handsome head, crowned with short, crisp masses of fair hair, and he was a blue-eyed young giant with the perfect features of an Antinous, and a smile that dazzled one when it played around the full red lips half veiled by the drooping ends of the long, fair mustache. He had an indolent air that was not unbecoming to him, but rather taking than otherwise. He did not look like a man who would overexert himself for anything, and yet the air might have been cultivated and not natural.

"I did not know that there was anything on this side of the 'herring-pond' her ladyship would deign to accept," said De Vere.

"There isn't. She has a horror of everything American."

"Then why—what?" inquired the other, perplexedly, and Captain Lancaster's moody brow cleared a moment, and he laughed merrily at his friend's amazed air.

"Give it up, Harry. You couldn't guess in a month," he said.

"I give it up," resignedly.

"It's a female," said Lancaster, lifting his head to note the effect on his inferior officer.

It was startling. The hands that were clasped behind the lieutenant's head relaxed suddenly, and he sat bolt upright on his sofa, his brown eyes distended to their greatest size, his whole air indicative of the greatest astonishment.

"By George! You don't say so?" he ejaculated.

Lancaster relaxed from his perturbation to laugh at his startled hearer. "It's astonishing what an effect the mere mention of the female sex has upon you, De Vere," he observed.

"Well, you did take my breath away. I confess myself astonished. Who is the female, Lancaster? Not," catching his breath excitedly, "the chosen fair?—the fatal she who is to out-captain the captain himself, and lead him captive to the hymeneal altar?"

"Pshaw!" disgustedly, "how you run on! Of course it is nothing of the sort. Could one come out of New York that would please my august aunt?"

"'Can any good come out of Nazareth?'" quoted the lieutenant, lightly. "But I say, Lancaster, you have excited my curiosity to the highest pitch. Who is the female? Am I to be associated with you in the care of her?"

"I will hand over to you the whole charge, if you wish," said the captain, with the same disgusted air.

"Cela dépend. Is she young and fair? I have found New York girls rather fascinating, usually," said De Vere, recalling sundry flirtations by the light of a chandelier, with nobody very near.

"Young? yes—very young, I should say," growled the captain, sardonically. "But not to keep you any longer in suspense, listen to this portion of my dear aunt's epistle:

"'There is a small commission I wish you to execute for me, Clive. My housekeeper's brother has died in New York and left her a little girl to take care of. I can not spare Mrs. West long enough for her to go after the child; and, in fact, I don't think it would be safe for her to go, anyhow. She is so simple, poor woman, she would be quite lost in the wilderness of New York, and might be devoured by the bulls and bears that I hear infest the place. So I want you to bring the child to England with you. I dare say she will not be much trouble. I inclose a card with her name and New York address. You are to go there and get little Leo and bring her to her aunt. Now, do not upon any account forget the child, Clive, for West would be ready to die of chagrin if you did not bring the little brat to her the first of June.'"

He paused and looked at his friend in comical anger.

"Did you ever hear of anything so deucedly cool in your life?" he said.

"No, I never did. It is most outrageous. What shall you do?"

"Advise me, please. Shall I rebel against my tormentor's mandate and refuse point-blank?"

"No, never. Rather meet the peril boldly and vanquish it. Walk boldly up to the cannon's mouth. In other words, accept the small commission."

"Small commission, indeed!" groaned the wretched victim. "What shall I do with a child—a girl-child, too—perhaps a baby?"

"That would be the best of all. You need have no trouble then. Only provide a nurse, a sucking-bottle, and some cans of condensed milk, put them aboard with the baby, and all your trouble is over," suggested the lieutenant.

"Is it so easy as that? Well, perhaps it is a baby. She calls it a girl, a little child. Yes, I have no doubt it is a baby. Well, when we leave Boston we will go over to New York and see about the nurse and the bottles," sighed Lancaster.

CHAPTER VI

Captain Lancaster and his friend, having brought letters of introduction from England, were having rather a nice time in the cultured and æsthetic circles of Boston. They had made the grand tour of the States, lingering at the last in the beautiful city where they had made some very pleasant acquaintances, and where, as eligibles of the first water, they were fêted and courted in the most flattering manner by the fashionable people of the place. It is true that Lieutenant De Vere sometimes declared that he found New York more charming, but still he lingered, loath to go, and it was two weeks after the reception of Lady Lancaster's letter before they turned their faces toward the city that held the child that was to go to England with them—the baby, as they had quite decided in their own minds it must be.

There are a few people who, when they have a disagreeable task to perform, go bravely forward and get it over. There are a great many more who shirk such things and put them off till the last moment. Captain Lancaster belonged to the latter class. He was intensely afraid of disagreeables. He revolted exceedingly from the idea of "that squalling baby" he had to carry to England. He thought that Mrs. West should come after it herself. Yet Captain Lancaster was not a bad and selfish man, as one might have supposed from his reluctance to do this kindness. The whole gist of the matter lay in the fact that his aunt had so cavalierly ordered him to do it. He chafed beneath the plainly visible fact that she meant to lead him by the nose as long as she lived, in virtue of the money she was going to leave him when she died.

So our hero mentally kicked against taking home the orphan child, and all unconsciously to himself directed a part of his vexation at his aunt against the little one. The mention of it was exceedingly distasteful to him, and when Lieutenant De Vere once or twice represented to him that he "ought to go and see about Leonora West before the last day," he invariably replied: "My dear friend, it is one of my rules never to do anything to-day that I can put off until to-morrow."

So it was actually the day before they sailed when Lancaster hunted up the address and went to look after his charge, his "small commission," as Lady Lancaster had blandly termed it. He went alone, for when De Vere offered to accompany him he shook his head and replied, decidedly, "No, I will not trouble you, for I can get over disagreeable things best alone."

So he went alone, and the address took him to a quiet, genteel boarding-house, in a quiet but highly respectable street. He rang the bell impatiently, and a smart female servant opened the door, smiling and bridling at the sight of the big, handsome young aristocrat.

"I have called to see about little Miss West. Is she here?" he inquired.

"Oh, Lor', yes sir!" she replied. "Please to walk into the parlor, and I'll take your card."

He handed her the small bit of pasteboard with his military title, "Captain Lancaster," simply engraved upon it, and said, abruptly:

"Send Miss West's nurse to me as soon as possible, please. I am in a hurry. We must sail for England to-morrow."

She gazed at him a little stupidly. "The nurse!" she echoed.

"Yes, the baby's nurse. Of course I must see her and make arrangements for our voyage," he replied; and the girl hastily retreated, and he caught the echo of a suppressed titter outside the door.

"American rudeness and freedom," he said to himself, disgustedly, as he walked up and down the limits of the pretty little parlor with its Brussels carpet, lace curtains, and open piano. "What did she see to giggle at, I wonder?"

And he glanced carelessly at his own elegant reflection in the long, swinging mirror, and felt complacently that there was nothing mirth-provoking there. From the top of his fair, handsome head to the toe of his shining boot all was elegant and irreproachable.

"Now, how long is that nurse going to make me wait? I hope, upon my soul, she won't bring that horrid young one in to display its perfections. I can well dispense with the pleasure," he said to himself, grimly, and he then turned hurriedly around at a sudden sound.

The door had opened softly, and a young girl, clad in deep, lusterless mourning apparel, had entered the parlor.

CHAPTER VII

Captain Lancaster was taken at a disadvantage. He was not at all a vain man. He did not half know how fine looking he was, and his hasty perusal of the mirror was directed rather to his dress than his face. But as he turned about hastily and met the half smile on the lips of the new-comer, he realized instantly that his attitude had favored strongly of masculine vanity, and a not unbecoming flush mounted to his good-looking, straight-featured face. He had a sneaking sense of shame in being caught posing, as it were, before the mirror by this extremely pretty girl.

She was more than pretty, this girl—she was rarely beautiful. She was of medium height and size, and her figure was symmetry itself, all its delicious curves and slender outlines defined at their best by the close-fitting black jersey waist she wore buttoned up to the graceful white throat that had a trick of holding itself high, as if innocently proud of the fair face that shone above it—the face that Captain Lancaster gazed at in wonder for a moment, and then in the most lively and decided disapprobation.

For she was much too pretty to be a nurse, he said to himself—too pretty and too young. She had an air of refinement quite above her position. She had an arch, pretty face, with beautiful blue-gray eyes that were almost black when the full white lids and dark lashes drooped over them. The dazzling fairness of her complexion was heightened by the unrelieved blackness of her dress, and her pouting lips by contrast looked like rosebuds. Two long, thick braids of lovely chestnut-brown hair hung down her back, and some soft, fluffy rings of the same color waved over the low, broad forehead with its slender, dark brows. She was not only beautiful, she looked bright and intelligent, and the half smile that parted her red lips now made her wonderfully lovely.

But pretty as she was, she was aware that Captain Lancaster was regarding her with knit brows and a general air of entire disapprobation. Perhaps it was a novel experience. It seemed to amuse her. The dimples deepened around the sweet, arch mouth. She looked down at the card in her hand, and began to read it aloud in a soft, hesitating, inquiring voice: "Cap-tain Lan-caster?"

"Yes," he replied, and was on the point of making his most elegant bow when he suddenly remembered that it was not at all necessary to be so ceremonious with the nurse of his housekeeper's niece. So he straightened himself up again and said, almost tartly:

"You are the baby's nurse, I presume?"

The long fringe of the girl's lashes lifted a moment, and she flashed a dazzling glance into his face.

"The—baby?" she inquired.

"Yes—the little Miss West—the child that is to get to England under my care. Aren't you her nurse?"

The young lady had put a very small, white hand up to her face and coughed very hard for a moment. She looked at him the next moment, very red in the face from the exertion.

"I—ah, yes, certainly; I'm the nurse," she replied, demurely.

And then ensued a moment's silence, broken at last by the girl, who said, quietly and politely:

"Won't you be seated, Captain Lancaster?"

He dropped mechanically into a chair near him, but the pretty nurse-maid remained standing meekly in the center of the room, her small hands folded before her, a demure look on her fair face.

The caller cleared his throat and began, rather nervously:

"It isn't possible that you expected to go to England as that child's nurse?" he said.

"I had hoped to do so," answered the girl, with a sudden air of chagrin.

"But—ah—really, you know, you're too young, aren't you?" stammered Lancaster, feeling abashed, he knew not why, but maintaining a grave, judicial air.

"Too young? I should hope not. I was eighteen last week," lifting the small head with an air of great dignity.

He could hardly repress a smile, but he put his long, white hand hastily across his lips to hide it from those bright, keen eyes.

"And do you think you can really take good care of Miss West?" he said. "Remember, it is a long trip across the ocean."

She flashed him one of her swift, bright glances.

"Indeed?" she said. "But that does not matter at all, sir. I consider myself quite competent to take care of Miss West anywhere."

"Does she mean to be impertinent?" he thought; but a glance at the demure, downcast face reassured him. It was only the high self-confidence of ignorant, innocent youth.

"You must excuse me; I don't know how they do such things on this side of the water," he said, feeling mean within himself, yet not at all understanding why it was so. "But, you see, it is all different in England. There one chooses a woman of age and experience for a nurse. Now, I remember my own nurse was at least fifty years old."

"In-deed?" replied the girl, dropping him a demure little courtesy that somehow again filled him with an uneasy sense that, under all her pretty humility, she meant to be impertinent. His face felt hot and burning. He did not know how to pursue the conversation.

Seeing that he made her no answer, she looked up with a pretty, appealing air. "Do I understand that you object to taking me to England? that my youth counts against me?" she inquired.

"Oh, no, no; not at all, if you are sure you can take good care of the baby," he replied, hastily. "You see, the whole thing is a great bore and nuisance to me. I object most decidedly to being encumbered with that child, but, most unfortunately for me, I can't get out of it. So, if you can really be of any use, pray go along with it to England—Oh!"

The sudden exclamation was wrung from him by a glance at her face. The pretty actress had dropped her mask at hearing those swift, vehement words of his. A hot color glowed in her face, two pearly tears started under her dark lashes. She put out her white hands before her as if to ward off a blow.

"Oh, Captain Lancaster, say no more!" she cried. "There has been some wretched mistake somewhere, and I have only been laughing at you these five minutes. I am nobody's nurse at all. There isn't any child nor any baby. It is a grown-up young lady. I am Leonora West."

Tableau!

CHAPTER VIII

"If only the earth would open and swallow me up!" sighed Lancaster to himself, miserably. It is not pleasant to be made fun of, and the most of people are too thin-skinned to relish a joke directed against themselves. Lancaster did not. His ridiculous mistake flashed over him instantly at the deprecatory words of the girl, and he scarcely knew whom to be most angry with—himself or Leonora West.

He stole a furtive glance at her, wishing in his heart that he could subdue the crimson flush that glowed on his face. He was glad that she was not looking at him. She had sunk into a chair and buried her face in her hands. Evidently she was not enjoying her saucy triumph much. Those last impatient words of his had cleverly turned the tables.

He glanced at the drooping figure in the arm-chair, and it flashed over him that De Vere would never be done laughing if he knew that he, Lord Lancaster, a cavalry officer, and a "swell party" altogether, had been made a target for the amusement of this lowly born girl. How dared she do it? and could he keep De Vere from finding out? he asked himself in the same breath.

And just then Leonora West lifted her wet eyes to his face, and said, with a sob in her throat:

"I am glad now that I didn't tell you the truth at first. If I had, I mightn't have found out, perhaps, that you thought me a bore and a nuisance, and that you didn't want me to go to Europe with you."

Captain Lancaster winced. All she had said was quite true, yet he had not cared to have her know it. It is but seldom one cares to have people know one's real opinion of them.

"And—and"—she went on, resentfully, "you may be quite, quite sure, after this, that I will not go with you. You will have no trouble with me. My aunt might have come after me herself, I think. I was afraid, when I got her letter saying that you would come for me, that something would go wrong. Now I know it. To think that you should call me a baby!"

While she poured forth her grievances dolorously, Lancaster had been collecting his wool-gathering wits. What upon earth was he to do if she really refused to go with him? He pictured to himself old Lady Lancaster's fury. It was quite likely that, after such a contretemps, she would cut him off with a shilling.

"It will never do for her to stay in this mood. She shall go to England, nolens volens," he resolved.

"Richard" began to be "himself again." The ludicrous side of the case dawned upon him.

"I have made a tremendous faux pas, certainly, and now I must get out of it the best way I can," he thought, grimly.

Leonora's sharp little tongue had grown still now, and her face was again hidden in her hands. He went up to her and touched her black sleeve lightly.

"Oh, come now," he said; "if you go on like this I shall think I made a very apposite mistake. Who but a baby would make such a declaration as yours in the face of the circumstances? Of course you are going to Europe with me!"

"I am not," she cried, with a mutinous pout of the rich red lips.

"Yes, you are," he replied, coolly. "You have no business to get angry with me because I made a slight mistake about your age. And after all, I remember now that it was really De Vere's mistake, and not mine."

"Who is De Vere?" inquired Leonora, curiously, as she glanced up at him through her wet lashes, and showing the rims of her eyes very pink indeed from the resentful tears she had shed.

"De Vere is my friend and traveling-companion," he replied.

"And does he, too, consider me a bore and a nuisance?"

"Well," confidingly, "to tell you the truth, we both did—that is, you know, while we were laboring under the very natural mistake that you were a very small baby instead of—a grown-up one. But all that is altered now, of course, since I have met you, Miss West. We shall be only too happy to have you for our compagnon du voyage."

He was speaking to her quite as if she were his equal, and not the lowly born niece of the housekeeper at his ancestral home. It was impossible to keep that fact in his head. She was so fair, so refined, so well-bred, in spite of the little flashes of spirit indicative of a spoiled child.

She did not answer, and he continued, pleasantly:

"I am very sorry for the mistake on my part that caused you so much annoyance. I desire to offer you every possible apology for it."

She looked up at him quickly. "Oh, I wasn't mad because you thought Leonora West was a baby," she said.

"Then why—because I thought you were a nurse?"

"Not that either. I was only amused at those mistakes of yours."

She paused a moment, then added, with a rising flush:

"It was for those other words you said."

"I do not blame you at all. I was a regular brute," said Lancaster, penitently. "Do say that you forgive me, I never should have said it if only I had known."

"Known what?" she inquired.

"That you were the baby I had to carry to England. I should have been only too happy to be of service to you. De Vere will be distracted with envy at my privilege. There, I have said several pretty things to you. Will you not forgive me now?"

"Yes, I will forgive you, but you do not deserve it," answered Leonora. "It was not kind to talk about me so, even if I had been an unconscious baby."

"It was not," he admitted. "But think a moment, Miss West. I am a bachelor, and I know nothing at all of babies. I have forgotten all the experiences of my own babyhood. I was wretched at the idea of having to convey one of those troublesome little problems across the ocean. I would as soon have been presented with a white elephant. I should have known quite as much of one as the other. Can you find it in your heart to chide me for my reluctance?"

Leonora reflected, with her pretty brows drawn together.

"Well, perhaps you are right," she acknowledged, after a moment. "They are troublesome—babies, I mean—I think you called them problems. You were right there, too, for one does not know what to make of them, nor what they will do next, nor what they will become in the future."

"Then you can not blame me, can not be angry with me. And you will be ready to go with me to-morrow?"

"No, I think not. I am afraid, after all you have said, Captain Lancaster, that you really are vexed in your mind at the thought of taking me. I do not believe I ought to take advantage of your pretended readiness," she replied, sensitively, and with that perfect frankness that seemed to be one of her characteristics.

"And you refuse to go with me?" He gazed at her despairingly.

"I would rather not," decidedly.

He looked at the pretty face in some alarm. It had a very resolute air. Would she really carry out her threat of staying behind? He did not know much about American girls, but he had heard that they managed their own affairs rather more than their English sisters. This one looked exceedingly like the heroine of that familiar ballad:

 
"When she will, she will, depend on't,
And when she won't, she won't,
And there's an end on't."
 

She glanced up and saw him pulling at the ends of his mustache with an injured air, and a dark frown on his brow.

"Why do you look so mad? I should think you would be glad I'm not going."

"I am vexed. I wasn't aware that I looked mad. In England we put mad people into insane asylums," he replied, rather stiffly.

"Thank you. I understand. Old England is giving Young America a rhetorical hint. Why do you look so vexed, then, Captain Lancaster?"

"Because there will be no end of a row in Lancaster Park when I go there, because you have not come with me."

"Will there, really?"

"Yes; and my aunt, Lady Lancaster, who has promised to give me all her money when she dies, will cut me off with a shilling because I have disobeyed her orders and disappointed Mrs. West."

The blue-gray eyes opened to their widest extent.

"No!" she said.

"Yes, indeed," he replied.

"Then she must be a very hard woman," said Miss West, in a decided tone.

"She is," he replied, laconically.

"You are certain that she would not give you the money?" anxiously.

"Quite certain," he answered.

"And—have you none of your own?"

"Only my pay in the army," he admitted, laughing within himself at her naïve curiosity.

"Is that much?" she went on, gravely.

"Enough to keep me in boots and hats," he answered, with an owl-like gravity.

"And this Lady Lancaster—your aunt—does she give you the rest?" persevered Leonora.

He did not want to be rude, but he burst out laughing. She looked up into the bright blue eyes and reddened warmly.

"I dare say you think me curious and ill-bred," she said.

"Oh, no, no, not at all. I am intensely flattered by the interest you take in my affairs."

"It is only because I do not want to be the means of your losing that money, if you want it. Do you?"

"Indeed I do. Anybody would be glad to have twenty thousand a year," he replied.

"So much as that? Then, of course, I must not be the cause of your losing it," said Leonora, gravely.

"Then you will go with me?" he cried, with quite a load lifted from his mind by her unexpected concession.

"Ye-es. I suppose I shall have to go," she answered.

"A thousand thanks. I thought you would relent," he said. "And will you be ready to sail with me to-morrow?"

"Oh, yes, quite ready. My trunks have been packed several weeks, and I have been only waiting for you to come," she answered, promptly.

And then she slipped her small hand into the folds of her dress and drew out a netted silk purse, through whose meshes he caught the glitter of gold pieces. She counted out a number of shining coins into his hand with quite a business-like air.

"That is the price of my ticket. Will you please buy it for me? I will have my luggage sent down all right," she said.

He took the money mechanically and rose, thinking this a dismissal. Then something that had been on his mind all the time rose to his lips.

"I want to ask a great favor of you, Miss West."

She looked at him with a slight air of wonder, and answered: "Yes."

"You will meet with my friend, Lieutenant De Vere, on board the steamer. He is a very nice youth indeed. He will be good friends with you directly."

"In-deed?" said Leonora, in a slow, inquiring voice that implied a distinct doubt on the subject.

"Yes, indeed. You need not look so incredulous. You will be sure to like him. The ladies all adore him."

She looked up at him with the dimples coming into roguish play around her mouth.

"And you wish to warn me not to fall a victim to his manifold perfections?" she said.

"Oh, dear, no, not at all. I never thought of such a thing. You see, Miss West, my friend intensely enjoys a joke."

"Yes?" she gazed at him with an air of thorough mystification.

"He intensely enjoys a joke," repeated Lancaster. "I want you to promise me now, upon your honor, that you will not tell him how unmercifully you quizzed me awhile ago. He would never have done chaffing me if he knew, and he would tell the whole regiment once we landed in England."

"Would they tease you much?" inquired Leonora, highly interested.

"Unbearably," he replied.

"They shall not know, then," she answered, promptly. "I will not tell your friend about it."

"Nor any one?" he entreated.

"Certainly not," she answered, soothingly, and involuntarily he caught her hand and pressed it a moment in his own, not displeased to see that she blushed as she drew it hastily away.

He went away, and when he looked at his watch outside the door he was honestly surprised.

"Two hours! I really do not know how the time went," he said to himself.

When he went back to his hotel he found De Vere in a state of surprise, too.

"You have been gone almost three hours," he said. "Did you find the baby?"

"Yes, I found it," he replied, carelessly.

"Was it well? Shall we have the pleasure of its company to-morrow?" pursued the lieutenant.

"Yes, it was well, but it is a spoiled child. I am afraid we shall find it a source of trouble to us," replied Captain Lancaster, smiling to himself at the surprise and delight in store for De Vere to-morrow, when he should find that it was a beautiful young girl instead of a cross baby who was to be their compagnon du voyage to England.