Kitabı oku: «Lancaster's Choice», sayfa 4

CHAPTER XIII

Miss West accepted the steamer-chair, the rugs, the wraps, and the books with unfeigned pleasure, and buried herself in the volumes with a pertinacity that was discouraging to her ardent wooer. She wearied of the blue sky and the blue ocean, the everlasting roll of the ship, the faces of her fellow-voyagers, of everything, as she averred, but the books. They had a fair and prosperous journey, and every sunny day Leonora might be seen on deck, but whether walking or sitting, she had always a book in her hand in whose pages she persistently buried herself at the approach of any one with whom she was disinclined to talk. In this discouraging state of things De Vere's wooing sped but slowly, and Lancaster's acquaintanceship progressed no further than a ceremonious "Good-morning," "Good-evening," "Can I be of any service to you?" and similar stilted salutations, to all of which Leonora replied with a quietness and constraint that put a check on further conversation. No one could complain that she gave any trouble; she was quiet, courteous, and gentle, and there were two pairs of eyes that followed the demure, black-robed figure everywhere upon the deck, and the owners of the eyes wished, perhaps, that she would call on them for more attention, more services, so oblivious did she seem of the fact that they waited assiduously upon her lightest command.

"She is not a little flirt, as I thought at first, seeing her with De Vere," the captain said to himself. "She is a clever little girl who is better pleased with the thoughts of clever writers than the society of two great, trifling fellows such as De Vere and myself. I applaud her taste."

All the same, he would have been pleased if the pretty face had lighted sometimes at his coming, if she had seemed to care for talking to him, if she had even asked him any questions about where she was going. But she did not manifest any curiosity on the subject. She was a constrained, chilly little companion always to him. It chagrined him to see that she was more at her ease with De Vere than with him. Once or twice she unbent from her lofty height with the lieutenant, smiled, chatted, even sang to him by moonlight, one night, in a voice as sweet as her face. But she was very shy, very quiet with the man whose business it was to convey her to England. She tried faithfully to be as little of "a bore and nuisance" as possible.

It did not matter; indeed, it was much better so, he told himself, and yet he chafed sometimes under her peculiar manner. He did not like to be treated wholly with indifference, did not like to be entirely ignored, as if she had forgotten him completely.

So one day when De Vere lolled in his state-room, he went and stood behind her chair where she sat reading. It was one of the poets of his own land whose book she held in her hand, and the fact emboldened him to say:

"You like English authors, Miss West. Do you think you shall like England?"

She lifted the blue-gray eyes calmly to his face.

"No," she replied, concisely.

He flushed a little. It was his own native land. He did not like to hear her say she should not like it.

"That is a pity, since you are going to make your home there," he said.

"I am not at all sure of that," she answered, putting her white forefinger between the pages of her book, and turning squarely round to look at him as he talked. "Perhaps if I can not bring myself to like England, I may persuade my aunt to come to America with me."

"Lady Lancaster would die of chagrin if you did," he replied, hastily.

He saw a blush color the smooth cheek, and wished that he had thought before he spoke.

"She is poor and proud. She does not like to be reminded that her aunt is a servant at Lancaster Park," he said, pityingly, to himself.

And he recalled De Vere's intentions with a sensation of generous pleasure. Leonora, with her fair face and her cultured mind, would be lifted by her marriage into the sphere where she rightly belonged. Then she would like England better.

"I have been reading your poet laureate," she said. "I was much struck by these lines:

 
'Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'Tis only noble to be good:
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.'
 

I should not have thought an English poet would write that," she went on. "I thought England was too entirely governed by the laws of caste for one of her people to give free utterance to such a dangerous sentiment."

"You must not judge us too hardly," he said, hastily.

Ignoring his feeble protest, she continued: "My papa was English, but he was not of what you call gentle birth, Captain Lancaster. He was the son of a most unlucky tradesman who died and left him nothing but his blessing. So papa ran away to America at barely twenty-one. He went to California to seek his fortune, and he had some good luck and some bad. When he had been there a year he found a gold nugget that was quite a fortune to him. So he married then, and when I was born my pretty young mamma died. After that he lived only for me. We had many ups and downs—all miners have—sometimes we were quite rich, sometimes very poor. But I have been what you call well educated. I know Latin and French and German, and I have studied music. In America, I can move in quite good society, but in your country—" she paused and fixed her clear, grave eyes on his face.

"Well?" he said.

"In England," she said, "I shall, doubtless, be relegated to the same position in society as my aunt, the housekeeper at Lancaster Park. Is it not so?"

He was obliged to confess that it was true.

"Then is it likely I shall love England?" she said. "No; I am quite too American for that. Oh, I dare say you are disgusted at me, Captain Lancaster. You are proud of your descent from a long line of proud ancestry." She looked down at her book and read on, aloud:

 
"'I know you're proud to bear your name,
Your pride is yet no mate for mine,
Too proud to care from whence I came.'"
 

He knew the verse by heart. Some impulse stronger than his will or reason prompted him to repeat the last two lines, meaningly, gazing straight into the sparkling, dark-gray eyes with his proud, blue ones:

 
"'A simple maiden in her flower
Is worth a hundred coats of arms.'"
 

The gray eyes, brave as they were, could not bear the meaning gaze of the blue ones. They wavered and fell. The long lashes drooped against the cheeks that flushed rosy red. She shut up the book with an impatient sigh, and said, with an effort at self-possession:

"You shall see that I will bring my aunt home to America with me, Captain Lancaster."

"Perhaps so; and yet I think she loves England—as much, I dare say, as you do America."

"I hope not, for what should we do in that case? I have only her, she has only me, and why should we live apart?"

"Do you mean to tell me that you have left behind you no relatives?" he said.

"I told you I had no one but Aunt West," she said, almost curtly.

"And she can scarcely be called your relative. I believe she was only your father's sister-in-law," he said.

"That is true," she replied.

"Then why go to her at all, since the kinship is but in name, and you would be happier in America?" he asked, with something of curiosity.

"Papa wished it," she replied, simply.

Then there was a brief silence. Leonora's lashes drooped, with the dew of unshed tears on them. The young face looked very sad in the soft evening light.

"She is almost alone in the world—poor child!" he thought.

"I want to ask you something," he said, impulsively.

"Yes," she said, listlessly.

"Was it because of those things we talked of just now—those aristocratic prejudices—that you have so severely ignored De Vere and me?"

"Not exactly," she replied, hesitatingly.

"Then, why?" he asked, gravely.

She looked up into the handsome blue eyes. They were regarding her very kindly. Something like a sob swelled her throat, but she said, as calmly as she could:

"I'll tell you the reason, Captain Lancaster. Do you remember the day we sailed, and what you and Lieutenant De Vere talked of that night over your cigars?"

"I remember," he replied, with an embarrassment it was impossible to hide.

The clear eyes looked up straight into his face.

"Well, then," she said, "I heard every word you said to each other there in the moonlight."

CHAPTER XIV

For the second time since he had met Leonora West, Captain Lancaster devoutly wished that the earth would open and hide him from the sight of those gray-blue eyes.

"I heard every word," she repeated, and his memory flew back anxiously to that night.

"Oh, impossible!" he cried. "You had retired. We were alone."

The fair cheek flushed warmly.

"I shall have to confess," she said. "But you must not judge me too hardly, Captain Lancaster."

He looked at her expectantly.

"I will tell you the truth," she said. "I went early to my state-room, because I was tired of Lieutenant De Vere. I wanted to be alone. But it was so warm and close in my room, I could not breathe freely. So I threw a dark shawl over me and went out on deck again. There was no one there. I slipped around in the shadow of the wheel-house and sat down."

"And then we came—De Vere and I," said Lancaster.

"Yes," she replied. "I was frightened at first, and shrank closer into the darkness. I did not want to be found out. I thought you would smoke your cigars and go away in a little while."

There was a minute's silence.

"I wish I had been a thousand miles away!" the captain thought, ruefully, to himself.

"So then you commenced to talk about me," continued Leonora. "I ought not to have listened, I know, but I could not make up my mind to interrupt you; it would have been so embarrassing, you know. So I kept still, hoping you would stop every minute, and thus I heard all."

"You heard nothing but kindness—you must grant that, at least," he said.

The red lips curled at the corners, whether with anger or feeling he could not tell.

"You were very condescending," she said, in a quiet, very demure little voice.

"Now, you wrong us—you do, indeed, Miss West," he cried, hotly. "We said the kindest things of you. You must own that Lieutenant De Vere paid you the highest compliment man can pay to woman."

A beautiful blush rose into the fair face, and her eyes drooped a moment.

"While we are upon the subject," he continued, hastily, "let me speak a word for my friend, Miss West. He is quite in earnest in his love for you, and you would do well to listen to his suit. He is in every way an unexceptionable suitor. There is everything in favor of him, personally, and he is of good birth, is the heir to a title, and last, but not least, has ten thousand a year of his own."

"Enough to buy him a more fitting bride than Mrs. West's niece," she said, with some bitterness, but more mirth, in her voice.

"Who could be more fitting than the one he has chosen?" asked Lancaster.

"It would be a mésalliance," she said, with her eyes full on his face as she quoted his words.

"In the world's eyes—yes," he answered, quietly. "But if you love him and he loves you, you need not care for the world," he said; and he felt the whole force of the words as he spoke them. He said to himself that any man who could afford to snap his fingers at fortune and marry Leonora West would be blessed.

She listened to his words calmly, and with an air of thoughtfulness, as if she were weighing them in her mind.

"And so," she said, when he had ceased speaking, "you advise me, Captain Lancaster, to follow up the good impression I have made on your friend, and to—to fall into his arms as soon as he asks me?"

He gave a gasp as if she had thrown cold water over him.

"Pray do not understand me as advising anything!" he cried, hastily. "I merely showed you the advantages of such a marriage; but, of course, I have no personal interest in the matter. I am no match-maker."

"No, of course not," curtly; then, with a sudden total change of the subject, she said: "Aren't we very near the end of our trip, Captain Lancaster?"

"You are tired?" he asked.

"Yes. It grows monotonous after the first day or two out," she replied.

"You might have had a better time if you had let De Vere and me amuse you," he said.

"Oh, I have been amused," she replied, frankly; and he wondered within himself what had amused her, but did not ask. She had a trick of saying things that chagrined him, because he did not understand them, and had a lingering suspicion that she was laughing at him.

"We shall see the end of our journey to-morrow, if we have good luck," he said, and she uttered an exclamation of pleasure.

"So soon? Ah, how glad I am! I wonder," reflectively, "what my aunt will think about me."

"She will be astonished, for one thing," he replied.

"Why?"

"Because I think she is expecting a child. She will be surprised to see a young lady."

"Poor papa!" a sigh; "he always called me his little girl. That is how the mistake has been made. Ah, Captain Lancaster, I can not tell you how much I miss my father!"

There was a tremor in the young voice. His heart thrilled with pity for her loneliness.

"I hope your aunt will be so kind to you that she will make up to you for his loss," he said.

"Tell me something about her," said Leonora.

"I am afraid I can not tell you much," he answered, with some embarrassment. "She is a good woman. I have heard Lady Lancaster say that much."

"Of course, you can not be expected to know much about a mere housekeeper," with a distinct inflection of bitterness in her voice. "Well, then, tell me about Lady Lancaster. Who is she?"

"She is the mistress of Lancaster Park."

"Is she nice?"

"She is old and ugly and cross and very rich. Is all that nice, as you define it?"

"No; only the last. It is nice to be rich, of course. That goes without saying. Well, then, is there a master?"

"A master?" vaguely.

"Of Lancaster Park, I mean."

"Oh, yes."

"And is he old and ugly and cross and rich?" pursued Miss West, curiously.

"He is all but the last," declared Lancaster, unblushingly. "He is as poor as Job's turkey. That is not nice, is it?"

"I know some people who are poor, but very, very nice," said the girl, with a decided air.

"I am glad to hear you say so. I am very poor myself. I have been thinking that the reason you have snubbed me so unmercifully of late is because I so foolishly gave myself away when I first met you."

"Gave yourself away?" uncomprehendingly.

"I mean I told you I was poor. I beg your pardon for the slang phrase I used just now. One falls unconsciously into such habits in the army. But tell me, did you?"

"Did I do what?"

"Did you snub me because I am poor?"

"I have not snubbed you at all," indignantly.

"You have ignored me. That is even worse," he said.

"Indeed I have not ignored you at all," she protested.

"Well, then, you forgot me. That is the unkindest cut of all. I could bear to be snubbed, but I hate to be totally annihilated," said he, with a grieved air.

She pursed her pretty lips and remained silent.

"Now you want me to go away, I see," he remarked. "This is the first time you have let me talk to you since we came aboard, and already you are weary."

"Yes, I am already weary," she echoed.

She put her little hand over her lips and yawned daintily but deliberately.

Burning with chagrin, he lifted his hat to her and walked away.

"I can never speak to her but she makes me repent," he said to himself, and went and leaned moodily against the side, while he continued to himself: "What a little thorn she is, and how sharply she can wound."

Leonora watched the retreating figure a moment, then leisurely opened her book again and settled herself to read. But she was not very deeply interested, it seemed, for now and then she glanced up under her long lashes at the tall, moveless figure of the soldier. At length she put down the book and went across to him.

Gazing intently out to sea, he started when a hand soft and white as a snow-flake fluttered down upon his coat-sleeve. He glanced quickly around.

"Miss West!" he exclaimed, in surprise.

She glanced up deprecatingly into his face.

"I—I was rude to you just now," she stammered. "I beg your pardon for it. I—I really don't know why I was so. I don't dislike you, indeed, and I think you are very nice. I have enjoyed the chair and the books, and I have been sorry ever since that day when I came down to the steamer and did not wait for you. But—somehow—it was very hard to tell you so."

She had spoken every word with a delightful shyness, and after a pause, she went on, with a catch in her breath:

"As for your being poor, I never thought of that—never. I think poor men are the nicest—always. They are handsomer than the rich ones. I—"

She caught her breath with a gasp. He had turned around quickly and caught her hand.

"Miss West—" he was beginning to say, when a sudden step sounded beside them.

Lieutenant De Vere had come up to them. There was a sudden glitter in his brown eyes—a jealous gleam.

"I beg your pardon. Are you and Miss West rehearsing for private theatricals?" he asked, with a slight sarcastic inflection.

Lancaster looked intensely annoyed; Leonora only laughed.

"Yes," she said. "Do you not think that I should make a good actress, Lieutenant De Vere?"

"Yes," he replied, "and Lancaster would make a good actor. 'One man in his time plays many parts.'"

Lancaster looked at him with a lightning gleam in his blue eyes. There was a superb scorn in them.

"Thank you," he replied. "And to carry out your idea, I will now make my exit."

He bowed royally and walked away. De Vere laughed uneasily; Leonora had coolly gone back to her book. His eyes flashed.

"If anyone had told me this, I should not have believed it," he muttered. "Ah! it was well to lecture me and get the game into his own hands. Beggar! what could he give her, even if she bestowed her matchless self upon him—what but a barren honor, an empty title? Ah, well! false friend, I know all now," he hissed angrily to himself.

CHAPTER XV

Leonora, apparently absorbed in her book, watched her exasperated admirer curiously under her long, shady lashes. She divined intuitively that he was bitterly jealous of his handsome friend.

"Have I stirred up strife between them?" she asked herself, uneasily. "That will never do. I must carry the olive branch to the distrustful friend."

She glanced around, and seeing that Lancaster was not in sight, called gently:

"Lieutenant De Vere!"

He hurried toward her, and stood in grim silence awaiting her pleasure.

"I—want to speak to you," she said.

There was a vacant chair near at hand. He brought it and sat down by her side.

"I am at your service, Miss West," he said, stiffly.

He thought he had never seen anything half so enchanting as the face she raised to his. The big black hat was a most becoming foil to her fresh young beauty. There was a smile on the rosy lips—half arch, half wistful. The full light of the sunny day shone on her, but her beauty was so flawless that the severe test only enhanced its perfection. His heart gave a fierce throb, half pain, half pleasure.

"You are vexed with me?" said Leonora, in a soft, inquiring voice.

"Oh, no, no," he replied, quickly.

"No?" she said. "But, then, you certainly are vexed with some one. If it is not with me, then it must be with Captain Lancaster."

To this proposition, that was made with an air of conviction, he remained gravely silent.

"Silence gives consent," said the girl, after waiting vainly for him to speak, and then he bowed coldly.

"Then it is he," she said. "Ah, dear me! what has Captain Lancaster done?"

"That is between him and me," said the soldier, with a sulky air.

The red lips dimpled. Leonora rather enjoyed the situation.

"You will not tell me?" she said.

"I beg your pardon—no," he answered, resolutely.

"Then I will tell you," she said: "you think he has treated you unfairly, that he has taken advantage of you."

De Vere stared.

"How can you possibly know, Miss West?" he asked, pulling sulkily at the ends of his dark mustache.

"I am very good at guessing," demurely.

"You did not guess this. He told you, I presume," bitterly.

"He—if you mean Captain Lancaster—told me nothing. I was telling him something. Why should you be vexed at him because I went and stood there and talked to him?" indignantly.

"I was not," rather feebly.

"Do you really deny it?" she asked him, incredulously.

"Well, since you put it so seriously, yes, I was vexed about it; but I don't understand how you could know it," he answered, flushing a dark red.

"I will tell you how I know," she said, coloring crimson also. "I heard all that you and Captain Lancaster said about me that first night we came aboard."

"Oh, by Jove! you didn't, though?" he exclaimed, radiant, and trying to meet the glance of the beautiful eyes.

But with her shy avowal she had let the white lids drop bashfully over them.

De Vere was not one bit disconcerted by what she had told him. He knew that all she had heard that night had been to his advantage.

"And so all this while you knew that I thought—" he began, boldly.

"That you thought me rather pretty—yes," she replied, modestly. "I knew also that I was a mésalliance for you, and that Captain Lancaster's future was 'cut and dried,'" bitterly.

He gazed at her in wonder.

"And you have kept it to yourself all this while, Miss West?"

"Yes, because I was ashamed to confess the truth. I did not want to be thought an eavesdropper, for I did not really wish to hear. It was an accident, but it has weighed on my mind ever since, and at last I made up my mind to 'fess, as the children say."

He gazed at her with ever-increasing admiration.

"So," she went on, slowly, "this evening I told Captain Lancaster all about it."

She blushed at the remembrance of some other things she had told him—things she had not meant to tell, but which had slipped out, as it were, in her compunction at her rudeness to him.

"And—that was all? Was he not making love to you, really?" cried the lieutenant, still uneasy at the remembrance of that impulsive hand-clasp that had so amazed him.

She flashed her great eyes at him in superb anger.

"Love to me—he would not dare!" breathlessly. "I'm nothing to him, nothing to you—never shall be! Please remember that! Once I reach my aunt, neither of you need ever expect to see me again. I—I—" a strangling sob; she broke down and wept out her anger in a perfumed square of black-bordered cambric.

"Oh, pray, don't cry!" cried he, in distress. "I did not mean to make you angry, Miss West;" and then Leonora hastily dried her eyes and looked up at him.

"I'm not angry—really," she said. "Only—only, I want you to understand that you need not be angry with Captain Lancaster on my account. There's no use in your liking me and having a quarrel over me—no use at all."

"No one has quarreled," he answered, in a tone of chagrin and bitter disappointment.

"Not yet, of course," she replied shaking her head gravely. "But you know you spoke to him very aggravatingly just now."

"I merely used a quotation from Shakespeare," he retorted.

The bright eyes looked him through and through with their clear gaze.

"Yes, but there was a double meaning in it. I am sure he understood all that you meant to convey. I should think that when you meet him again he will knock you down for it."

"You are charmingly frank, but you are right. I do not doubt but that he will—if he can," he replied, bitterly.

Leonora measured the medium-sized figure critically with her eyes.

"I should think there could be no doubt on the subject," she observed. "He is twice as big as you are."

"Why do women all admire big, awkward giants?" asked he, warmly.

"We do not," sharply.

"Oh, Miss West, there's no use denying it. There are a dozen men in the Guards better looking than Lancaster, yet not one so much run after by the women; all because he is a brawny-fisted Hercules," crossly.

"Captain Lancaster is your friend, isn't he?" with a curling lip.

"He was before I saw you. He is not my friend if he is my rival," said De Vere, with frankness equal to her own.

The round cheeks grew crimson again.

"Put me out of the question. I am nothing to either of you—never can be," she said. "You have been friends, haven't you?"

"Yes," curtly.

"For a long time?" persisted she.

"Ever since I went into the Guards—that is five years ago," he replied. "The fellows used to call us Damon and Pythias."

"Then don't—don't let me make a quarrel between you!" exclaimed Leonora, pleadingly.

"It is already made, isn't it?" with a half regret in his voice.

"No; only begun—and you mustn't let it go any further."

"No? But what is a fellow to do, I should like to know?"

"You must go and apologize to your friend for your hasty, ill-timed words," she said.

"I'll be hanged if I show the white feather like that!" he cried, violently.

"There is no white feather at all. You made a mistake and spoke unjust words to your friend. Now, when you discover your error, you should be man enough to retract your remarks," she answered, indignantly.

"I can't see why you take up for Lancaster so vehemently," he commented, straying from the main point.

"I'm not taking up for him," warmly. "I only don't want you to make a fool of yourself about me!"

"Ah!"—shortly.

"Yes, that is what I mean, exactly; I don't want my aunt to think I've set you two at odds. She will be prejudiced against me in the beginning. Come, now," dropping her vexed tone and falling into a coaxing one, "go and make it up with your injured Pythias."

He regarded her in silence a moment.

"Should you like me any better if I did?" he inquired, after this thoughtful pause.

"Of course I should," she answered, in an animated tone.

"And it would really please you for me to tell Lancaster I was mistaken and am sorry?"

"Yes, I should like that, certainly."

He tried to look into the sparkling eyes, but they had wandered away from him. She was watching the flight of a sea-bird whose glancing wings were almost lost in the illimitable blue of the sky.

"If I do this thing it will be wholly for your sake," he said, meaningly.

"For my sake, then," she answered, carelessly; and then he rose and left her.

Lancaster had been in his state-room reading two hours, perhaps, when De Vere knocked at his door. He tossed back his fair hair carelessly, and without rising from his reclining posture, bade the applicant come in.

"Ah, it is you, De Vere?" he said, icily.

"Yes, it is I, Lancaster. What have you been doing? Writing a challenge to me?" laughing. "Well, you may burn it now; I have come to retract my words."

"To retract?" the frown on Lancaster's moody brow began to clear away.

"Yes, I was mistaken, I thought you were my rival in secret, but Miss West has explained all to me. I spoke unjustly. Can you accord me your pardon? I'm downright sorry, old fellow—no mistake."

Lancaster gave him his hand.

"Think before you speak next time," he said, dryly.

"I will. But I was terribly cut up at first, seeing you and her together—like that. How sweet she is! She did not want us to quarrel over her. She confessed everything. It was comical, her hearing everything that night—was it not? But there was no harm done."

"No," Lancaster said, constrainedly.

"I'm glad we are friends again; but I was so stiff I could never have owned myself in the wrong, only that I promised to do it for her sake," added De Vere; and then he went away, and left his friend to resume the interrupted perusal of his novel.

But Lancaster tossed the folio angrily down upon the floor.

"For her sake," he replied. "She is a little coquette, after all, and I thought for an hour that—Pshaw, I am a fool! So she has fooled him to the top of his bent, too! Why did I speak to her at all? Little nettle! I might have known how she would sting! Well, well, I wish the 'small commission' were duly handed over to the housekeeper at Lancaster Park. A good riddance, I should say! So she thought that poor men were the nicest and handsomest, always? Faugh! Lucky for me that De Vere came upon the scene just then! In another minute I should have told her that I thought just the same about poor girls! So she confessed all to De Vere, and bade him apologize for her sake. Ah, ah, little flirt!" he repeated, bitterly.