Kitabı oku: «Love Works Wonders: A Novel», sayfa 4

CHAPTER IX.
THE BROKEN LILY

Pauline Darrell was a keen, shrewd observer of character. She judged more by small actions than by great ones; it was a characteristic of hers. When women have that gift, it is more to be dreaded than the cool, calm, matured judgment of men. Men err sometimes in their estimate of character, but it is very seldom that a woman makes a similar mistake.

The garden path widened where the tall white lilies grew in rich profusion, and there Pauline and Captain Langton walked side by side. The rich, sweet perfume seemed to gather round them, and the dainty flowers, with their shining leaves and golden bracts, looked like great white stars.

Captain Langton carried a small cane in his hand. He had begun to talk to Pauline with great animation. Her proud indifference piqued him. He was accustomed to something more like rapture when he devoted himself to any fair lady. He vowed to himself that he would vanquish her pride, that he would make her care for him, that the proud, dark eyes should soften and brighten for him; and he gave his whole mind to the conquest. As he walked along, one of the tall, white lilies bent over the path; with one touch of the cane he beat it down, and Pauline gave a little cry, as though the blow had pained her. She stopped, and taking the slender green stem in her hand, straightened it; but the blow had broken one of the white leaves.

"Why did you do that?" she asked, in a pained voice.

"It is only a flower," he replied, with a laugh.

"Only a flower! You have killed it. You cannot make it live again. Why need you have cut its sweet life short?"

"It will not be missed from among so many," he said.

"You might say the same thing of yourself," she retorted. "The world is full of men, and you would hardly be missed from so many; yet you would not like – "

"There is some little difference between a man and a flower, Miss Darrell," he interrupted, stiffly.

"There is, indeed; and the flowers have the advantage," she retorted.

The captain solaced himself by twisting his mustache, and relieved his feelings by some few muttered words, which Miss Darrell did not hear. In her quick, impulsive way, she judged him at once.

"He is cruel and selfish," she thought; "he would not even stoop to save the life of the sweetest flower that blows. He shall not forget killing that lily," she continued, as she gathered the broken chalice, and placed it in her belt. "Every time he looks at me," she said, "he shall remember what he has done."

The captain evidently understood her amiable intention, and liked her accordingly. They walked on for some minutes in perfect silence; then Pauline turned to him suddenly.

"Have you been long in the army, Captain Langton?"

Flattered by a question that seemed to evince some personal interest, he hastened to reply:

"More than eight years. I joined when I was twenty."

"Have you seen any service?" she asked.

"No," he replied. "My regiment had been for many years in active service just before I joined, so that we have been at home since then."

"In inglorious ease," she said.

"We are ready for work," he returned, "when work comes."

"How do you employ your time?" she asked; and again he was flattered by the interest that the question showed. His face flushed. Here was a grand opportunity of showing this haughty girl, this "proudest Darrell of them all," that he was eagerly sought after in society such as she had not yet seen.

"You have no conception of the immense number of engagements that occupy our time," he replied; "I am fond of horses – I take a great interest in all races."

If he had added that he was one of the greatest gamblers on the turf, he would have spoken truthfully.

"Horse racing," said Miss Darrell – "that is the favorite occupation of English gentlemen, is it not?"

"I should imagine so. Then I am considered – you must pardon my boasting – one of the best billiard players in London."

"That is not much of a boast," she remarked, with such quiet contempt that the captain could only look at her in sheer wonder.

"There are balls, operas, parties, suppers – I cannot tell what; and the ladies engross a great deal of our time. We soldiers never forget our devotion and chivalry to the fair sex, Miss Darrell."

"The fair sex should be grateful that they share your attention with horses and billiards," she returned. "But what else do you do, Captain Langton? I was not thinking of such trifles as these."

"Trifles!" he repeated. "I do not call horse racing a trifle. I was within an inch of winning the Derby – I mean to say a horse of mine was. If you call that a trifle, Miss Darrell, you go near to upsetting English society altogether."

"But what great things do you do?" she repeated, her dark eyes opening wider. "You cannot mean seriously that this is all. Do you never write, paint – have you no ambition at all?"

"I do not know what you call ambition," he replied, sullenly; "as for writing and painting, in England we pay people to do that kind of thing for us. You do not think that I would paint a picture, even if I could?"

"I should think you clever if you did that," she returned; "at present I cannot see that you do anything requiring mind or intellect."

"Miss Darrell," he said, looking at her, "you are a radical, I believe."

"A radical?" she repeated, slowly. "I am not quite sure, Captain Langton, that I know what that means."

"You believe in aristocracy of intellect, and all that kind of nonsense," he continued. "Why should a man who paints a picture be any better than the man who understands the good points of a horse?"

"Why, indeed?" she asked, satirically. "We will not argue the question, for we should not agree."

"I had her there," thought the captain. "She could not answer me. Some of these women require a high hand to keep them in order."

"I do not see Miss Hastings," she said at last, "and it is quite useless going to the aviary without her. I do not remember the name of a single bird; and I am sure you will not care for them."

"But," he returned, hesitatingly, "Sir Oswald seemed to wish it."

"There is the first dinner-bell," she said, with an air of great relief; "there will only just be time to return. As you seem solicitous about Sir Oswald's wishes we had better go in, for he dearly loves punctuality."

"I believe," thought the captain, "that she is anxious to get away from me. I must say that I am not accustomed to this kind of thing."

The aspect of the dining-room, with its display of fine old plate, the brilliantly arranged tables, the mingled odor of rare wines and flowers, restored him to good humor.

"It would be worth some little trouble," he thought, "to win all this."

He took Pauline in to dinner. The grand, pale, passionate beauty of the girl had never shown to greater advantage than it did this evening, as she sat with the purple and crimson fuchsias in her hair and the broken lily in her belt. Sir Oswald did not notice the latter until dinner was half over. Then he said:

"Why, Pauline, with gardens and hothouses full of flowers, have you chosen a broken one?"

"To me it is exquisite," she replied.

The captain's face darkened for a moment, but he would not take offense. The elegantly appointed table, the seductive dinner, the rare wines, all made an impression on him. He said to himself that there was a good thing offered to him, and that a girl's haughty temper should not stand in his way. He made himself most agreeable, he was all animation, vivacity, and high spirits with Sir Oswald. He was deferential and attentive to Miss Hastings, and his manner to Pauline left no doubt in the minds of the lookers on that he was completely fascinated by her. She was too proudly indifferent, too haughtily careless, even to resent it. Sir Oswald Darrell was too true a gentleman to offer his niece to any one; but he had given the captain to understand that, if he could woo her and win her, there would be no objection raised on his part.

For once in his life Captain Langton had spoken quite truthfully.

"I have nothing," he said; "my father left me but a very moderate fortune, and I have lost the greater part of it. I have not been careful or prudent, Sir Oswald."

"Care and prudence are not the virtues of youth," Sir Oswald returned. "I may say, honestly, I should be glad if your father's son could win my niece; as for fortune, she will be richly dowered if I make her my heiress. Only yesterday I heard that coal had been found on my Scotch estates, and, if that be true, it will raise my income many thousands per annum."

"May you long live to enjoy your wealth, Sir Oswald!" said the young man, so heartily that tears stood in the old baronet's eyes.

But there was one thing the gallant captain did not confess. He did not tell Sir Oswald Darrell – what was really the truth – that he was over head and ears in debt, and that this visit to Darrell Court was the last hope left to him.

CHAPTER X.
PAULINE STILL INCORRIGIBLE

Sir Oswald lingered over his wine. It was not every day that he found a companion so entirely to his taste as Captain Langton. The captain had a collection of anecdotes of the court, the aristocracy, and the mess-room, that could not be surpassed. He kept his own interest well in view the whole time, making some modest allusions to the frequency with which his society was sought, and the number of ladies who were disposed to regard him favorably. All was narrated with the greatest skill, without the least boasting, and Sir Oswald, as he listened with delight, owned to himself that, all things considered, he could not have chosen more wisely for his niece.

A second bottle of fine old port was discussed, and then Sir Oswald said:

"You will like to go to the drawing-room; the ladies will be there. I always enjoy forty winks after dinner."

The prospect of a tete-a-tete with Miss Darrell did not strike the captain as being a very rapturous one.

"She is," he said to himself, "a magnificently handsome girl, but almost too haughty to be bearable. I have never, in all my life, felt so small as I do when she speaks to me or looks at me, and no man likes that sort of thing."

But Darrell Court was a magnificent estate, the large annual income was a sum he had never even dreamed of, and all might be his – Sir Oswald had said so; his, if he could but win the proud heart of the proudest girl it had ever been his fortune to meet. The stake was well worth going through something disagreeable for.

"If she were only like other women," he thought, "I should know how to manage her; but she seems to live in the clouds."

The plunge had to be made, so the captain summoned all his courage, and went to the drawing-room. The picture there must have struck the least imaginative of men.

Miss Hastings, calm, elegant, lady-like, in her quiet evening dress of gray silk, was seated near a small stand on which stood a large lamp, by the light of which she was reading. The part of the room near her was brilliantly illuminated. It was a spacious apartment – unusually so even for a large mansion. It contained four large windows, two of which were closed, the gorgeous hangings of white and gold shielding them from view; the other end of the room was in semi-darkness, the brilliant light from the lamp not reaching it – the windows were thrown wide open, and the soft, pale moonlight came in. The evening came in, too, bringing with it the sweet breath of the lilies, the perfume of the roses, the fragrance of rich clover, carnations, and purple heliotropes. Faint shadows lay on the flowers, the white silvery light was very peaceful and sweet; the dewdrops shone on the grass – it was the fairest hour of nature's fair day.

Pauline had gone to the open window. Something had made her restless and unquiet; but, standing there, the spell of that beautiful moonlit scene calmed her, and held her fast. With one look at that wonderful sky and its myriad stars, one at the soft moonlight and the white lilies, the fever of life died from her, and a holy calm, sweet fancies, bright thoughts, swept over her like an angel's wing.

Then she became conscious of a stir in the perfumed air; something less agreeable mingled with the fragrance of the lilies scent of which she did not know the name, but which – some she disliked ever afterward because the captain used it. A low voice that would fain be tender murmured something in her ear; the spell of the moonlight was gone, the quickly thronging poetical fancies had all fled away, the beauty seemed to have left even the sleeping flowers. Turning round to him, she said, in a clear voice, every word sounding distinctly:

"Have the goodness, Captain Langton, not to startle me again. I do not like any one to come upon me in that unexpected manner."

"I was so happy to find you alone," he whispered.

"I do not know why that should make you happy. I always behave much better when I am with Miss Hastings than when I am alone."

"You are always charming," he said. "I want to ask you something, Miss Darrell. Be kind, be patient, and listen to me."

"I am neither kind nor patient by nature," she returned; "what have you to say?"

It was very difficult, he felt, to be sentimental with her. She had turned to the window, and was looking out again at the flowers; one little white hand played impatiently with a branch of guelder roses that came peeping in.

"I am jealous of those flowers," said the captain; "will you look at me instead of them?"

She raised her beautiful eyes, and looked at him so calmly, with so much conscious superiority in her manner, that the captain felt "smaller" than ever.

"You are talking nonsense to me," she said, loftily; "and as I do not like nonsense, will you tell me what you have to say?"

The voice was calm and cold, the tones measured and slightly contemptuous; it was very difficult under such circumstances to be an eloquent wooer, but the recollection of Darrell Court and its large rent-roll came to him and restored his fast expiring courage.

"I want to ask a favor of you," he said; and the pleading expression that he managed to throw into his face was really creditable to him. "I want to ask you if you will be a little kinder to me. I admire you so much that I should be the happiest man in all the world if you would but give me ever so little of your friendship."

She seemed to consider his words – to ponder them; and from her silence he took hope.

"I am quite unworthy, I know; but, if you knew how all my life long I have desired the friendship of a good and noble woman, you would be kinder to me – you would indeed!"

"Do you think, then, that I am good and noble?" she asked.

"I am sure of it; your face – "

"I wish," she interrupted, "that Sir Oswald were of your opinion. You have lived in what people call 'the world' all your life, Captain Langton, I suppose?"

"Yes," he replied, wondering what would follow.

"You have been in society all that time, yet I am the first 'good and noble woman' you have met! You are hardly complimentary to the sex, after all."

The captain was slightly taken aback.

"I did not say those exact words, Miss Darrell."

"But you implied them. Tell me why you wish for my friendship more than any other. Miss Hastings is ten thousand times more estimable than I am – why not make her your friend?"

"I admire you – I like you. I could say more, but I dare not. You are hard upon me, Miss Darrell."

"I have no wish to be hard," she returned. "Who am I that I should be hard upon any one? But, you see, I am unfortunately what people call very plain-spoken – very truthful."

"So much the better," said Captain Langton.

"Is it? Sir Oswald says not. If he does not make me his heiress, it will be because I have such an abrupt manner of speaking; he often tells me so."

"Truth in a beautiful woman," began the captain, sentimentally; but Miss Darrell again interrupted him – she had little patience with his platitudes.

"You say you wish for my friendship because you like me. Now, here is the difficulty – I cannot give it to you, because I do not like you."

"You do not like me?" cried the captain, hardly able to believe the evidence of his own senses. "You cannot mean it! You are the first person who ever said such a thing!"

"Perhaps I am not the first who ever thought it; but then, as I tell you, I am very apt to say what I think."

"Will you tell me why you do not like me?" asked the captain, quietly. He began to see that nothing could be gained in any other fashion.

Her beautiful face was raised quite calmly to his, her dark eyes were as proudly serene as ever, she was utterly unconscious that she was saying anything extraordinary.

"I will tell you with pleasure," she replied. "You seem to me wanting in truth and earnestness; you think people are to be pleased by flattery. You flatter Sir Oswald, you flatter Miss Hastings, you flatter me. Being agreeable is all very well, but an honest man does not need to flatter – does not think of it, in fact. Then, you are either heedless or cruel – I do not know which. Why should you kill that beautiful flower that Heaven made to enjoy the sunshine, just for one idle moment's wanton sport?"

Captain Langton's face grew perfectly white with anger.

"Upon my word of honor," he said, "I never heard anything like this!"

Miss Darrell turned carelessly away.

"You see," she said, "friendship between us would be rather difficult. But I will not judge too hastily; I will wait a few days, and then decide."

She had quitted the room before Captain Langton had sufficiently recovered from his dismay to answer.

CHAPTER XI.
HOW WILL IT END?

It was some minutes before Captain Langton collected himself sufficiently to cross the room and speak to Miss Hastings. She looked up at him with a smile.

"I am afraid you have not had a very pleasant time of it at that end of the room, Captain Langton," she said; "I was just on the point of interfering."

"Your pupil is a most extraordinary young lady, Miss Hastings," he returned; "I have never met with any one more so."

Miss Hastings laughed; there was an expression of great amusement on her face.

"She is certainly very original, Captain Langton; quite different from the pattern young lady of the present day."

"She is magnificently handsome," he continued; "but her manners are simply startling."

"She has very grand qualities," said Miss Hastings; "she has a noble disposition and a generous heart, but the want of early training, the mixing entirely with one class of society, has made her very strange."

"Strange!" cried the captain. "I have never met with any one so blunt, so outspoken, so abrupt, in all my life. She has no notion of repose or polish; I have never been so surprised. I hear Sir Oswald coming, and really, Miss Hastings, I feel that I cannot see him; I am not equal to it – that extraordinary girl has quite unsettled me. You might mention that I have gone out in the grounds to smoke my cigar; I cannot talk to any one."

Miss Hastings laughed as he passed out through the open French window into the grounds. Sir Oswald came in, smiling and contented; he talked for a few minutes with Miss Hastings, and heard that the captain was smoking his cigar. He expressed to Miss Hastings his very favorable opinion of the young man, and then bade her good-night.

"How will it end?" said the governess to herself. "She will never marry him, I am sure. Those proud, clear, dark eyes of hers look through all his little airs and graces; her grand soul seems to understand all the narrowness and selfishness of his. She will never marry him. Oh, if she would but be civilized! Sir Oswald is quite capable of leaving all he has to the captain, and then what would become of Pauline?"

By this time the gentle, graceful governess had become warmly attached to the beautiful, wayward, willful girl who persisted so obstinately in refusing what she chose to call "polish."

"How will it end?" said the governess. "I would give all I have to see Pauline mistress of Darrell Court; but I fear the future."

Some of the scenes that took place between Miss Darrell and the captain were very amusing. She had the utmost contempt for his somewhat dandified airs, his graces, and affectations.

"I like a grand, rugged, noble man, with the head of a hero, and the brow of a poet, the heart of a lion, and the smile of a child," she said to him one day; "I cannot endure a coxcomb."

"I hope you may find such a man, Miss Darrell," he returned, quietly. "I have been some time in the world, but I have never met with such a character."

"I think your world has been a very limited one," she replied, and the captain looked angry.

He had certainly hoped and intended to dazzle her with his worldly knowledge, if nothing else. Yet how she despised his knowledge, and with what contempt she heard him speak of his various experiences!

Nothing seemed to jar upon her and to irritate her as did his affectations. She was looking one morning at a very beautifully veined leaf, which she passed over to Miss Hastings.

"Is it not wonderful?" she asked; and the captain, with his eye-glass, came to look at it.

"Are you short-sighted?" she asked him, abruptly.

"Not in the least," he replied.

"Is your sight defective?" she continued.

"No, not in the least degree."

"Then why do you use that eye-glass, Captain Langton?"

"I-ah-why, because everybody uses one," he replied.

"I thought it was only women who did that kind of thing – followed a fashion for fashion's sake," she said, with some little contempt.

The next morning the captain descended without his eye-glass, and Miss Hastings smiled as she noticed it.

Another of his affectations was a pretended inability to pronounce his "t's" and "r's."

"Can you really not speak plainly?" she said to him one day.

"Most decidedly I can," he replied, wondering what was coming next.

"Then, why do you call 'rove' 'wove' in that absurd fashion?"

The captain's face flushed.

"It is a habit I have fallen into, I suppose," he replied. "I must break myself of it."

"It is about the most effeminate habit a man can fall into," said Miss Darrell. "I think that, if I were a soldier, I should delight in clear, plain speaking. I cannot understand why English gentlemen seem to think it fashionable to mutilate their mother tongue."

There was no chance of their ever agreeing – they never did even for one single hour.

"What are you thinking about, Pauline?" asked Miss Hastings one day.

Her young pupil had fallen into a reverie over "The History of the Peninsular War."

"I am thinking," she replied, "that, although France boasts so much of her military glory, England has a superior army; her soldiers are very brave; her officers the truest gentlemen."

"I am glad to hear that you think so. I have often wondered if you would take our guest as a sample."

Her beautiful lips curled with unutterable contempt.

"Certainly not. I often contrast him with a Captain Lafosse, who used to visit us in the Rue d'Orme, a grand man with a brown, rugged face, and great brown hands. Captain Langton is a coxcomb – neither more nor less, Miss Hastings."

"But he is polished, refined, elegant in his manner and address, which, perhaps, your friend with the brown, rugged face was not."

"We shall not agree, Miss Hastings, we shall not agree. I do not like Captain Langton."

The governess, remembering all that Sir Oswald wished, tried in vain to represent their visitor in a more favorable light. Miss Darrell simply looked haughty and unconvinced.

"I am years younger than you," she said, at last, "and have seen nothing of what you call 'life'; but the instinct of my own heart tells me that he is false in heart, in mind, in soul; he has a false, flattering tongue, false lips, false principles – we will not speak of him."

Miss Hastings looked at her sadly.

"Do you not think that in time, perhaps, you may like him better?"

"No," was the blunt reply, "I do not. I told him that I did not like him, but that I would take some time to consider whether he was to be a friend of mine or not; and the conclusion I have arrived at is, that I could not endure his friendship."

"When did you tell him that you did not like him?" asked Miss Hastings, gravely.

"I think it was the first night he came," she replied.

Miss Hastings looked relieved.

"Did he say anything else to you, Pauline?" she asked, gently.

"No; what should he say? He seemed very much surprised, I suppose, as he says most people like him. But I do not, and never shall."

One thing was certain, the captain was falling most passionately in love with Miss Darrell. Her grand beauty, her pride, her originality, all seemed to have an irresistible charm for him.