A Terrible Secret - May Agnes Fleming (best ebook reader txt) 📗

for. A baronet for a brother-in-law is all very well--a baronet for a rival is not well at all. Now, my dear child, try to overcome the general nastiness of your cranky disposition, for once, and make yourself agreeable. I knew you were pining on the stem for me at home, and so I threw over the last crush of the season, made Mrs. Featherbrain my enemy for life, and here I am. Sing us something."

Miss Darrell turned to the piano with a frown, but her eyes were smiling, and in her secret heart she was well-content. Charley was beside her. Charley had given up the ball and Mrs. Featherbrain for her. It was of no use denying it, she was fond of Charley. Of late it had dawned dimly and deliciously upon her that Sir Victor Catheron was growing very attentive. If so wildly improbable a thing could occur, as Sir Victor's falling in love with her, she was ready at any moment to be his wife; but for the love which alone makes marriage sweet and holy, which neither time, nor trouble, nor absence, can change--that love she felt for her cousin Charley, and no other mortal man.

It was a very pleasant evening--_how_ pleasant, Edith did not care to own, even to herself. Aunt Chatty dozed sweetly in her arm-chair, she in her place at the piano, and Charley taking comfort on his sofa, and calmly and dispassionately finding fault with her music. That those two could spend an evening, an hour, together, without disagreeing, was simply an utter impossibility. Edith invariably lost her temper--nothing earthly ever disturbed Charley's. Presently, in anger and disgust, Miss Darrell jumped up from the piano-stool, and protested she would play no more.

"To be told I sing Kathleen Mavourneen flat, and that the way I hold my elbows when I play Thalberg's 'Home,' is frightful to behold, I will _not_ stand! Like all critics, you find it easier to point out one's faults, than to do better. It's the very last time, sir, I'll ever play a note for you!"

But, somehow, after a skirmish at euchre, at which she was ignobly beaten, and, I must say, shamefully cheated, she was back at the piano, and it was the clock striking twelve that made her start at last.

"Twelve! Goodness me. I didn't think it was half-past ten!" Mr. Stuart smiled, and stroked his mustache with calm complacency. "Aunt Chatty, wake up! It's midnight--time all good little women were in bed."

"_You_ need not hurry yourself on that account, Dithy," Charley suggests, "if the rule only applies to good little women."

Miss Darrell replies with a glance of scorn, and wakes up Mrs. Stuart.

"You were sleeping so nicely I thought it a pity to wake you sooner. Come, auntie dear, we'll go upstairs together. You know we have a hard day's work before us to-morrow. Good-night, Mr. Stuart."

"Good-night, my love," Mr. Stuart responded, making no attempt to stir. Edith linked her strong, young arm in that of her sleepy aunt and led her upstairs. He lay and watched the slim green figure, the beautiful bright face, as it disappeared in a mellow flood of gaslight. The clear, sweet voice came floating saucily back:

"And Charley he's my darling,
My darling--my darling,
And Charley he's my darling,
The young Chevalier!"

All that was sauciest, and most coquettish in the girl's nature, came out with Charley. With Sir Victor, as Trixy explained it, she was "goody" and talked sense.

Mr. Stuart went back to the ball, and, I regret to say, made himself obnoxious to old Featherbrain, by the marked _empressement_ of his devotion to old Featherbrain's wife. Edith listened to the narration next day from the lips of Trix with surprise and disgust. Miss Stuart, on her own account, was full of triumph and happiness. Sir Victor had been most devoted, "_most devoted_" said Trix, in italics, "that is, for him. He danced with me very often, and he spoke several times of _you_, Dithy, dear. He couldn't understand why you absented yourself from the last party of the season--no more can I for that matter. A person may hate a person like poison--I often do myself--and yet go to that person's parties."

But this was a society maxim Miss Darrell could by no means be brought to understand. Where she liked she liked, where she hated she hated--there were no half measures for her.

The last day came. At noon, with a brilliant May sun shining, the ship fired her farewell guns, and steamed away for Merrie England. Edith leaned over the bulwark and watched the receding shore, with her heart in her eyes.

"Good-by to home," she said, a smile on her lip, a tear in her eye. "Who knows when and how I may see it again. Who knows whether I shall _ever_ see it?"

The luncheon bell rang; everybody--a wonderful crowd too--flocked merrily downstairs to the saloon, where two long tables, bright with crystal and flowers, were spread. What a delightful thing was an ocean voyage, and sea-sickness--bah!--merely an illusion of the senses.

After lunch, Charley selected the sunniest spot on deck for his resting-place, and the prettiest girl on board, for his companion, spread out his railway rug at her feet, spread out himself thereon, and prepared to be happy and be made love to. Trix, on the arm of the baronet, paraded the deck, Mrs. Stuart and Lady Helena buried themselves in the seclusion of the ladies' cabin, in expectation of the wrath to come. Edith got a camp-stool and a book, and hid herself behind the wheel-house for a little of private enjoyment. But she did not read; it was delight enough to sit and watch the old ocean smiling, and smiling like any other coquette, as though it could never be cruel.

The afternoon wore on; the sun dropped low, the wind arose--so did the sea. And presently--staggering blindly on Sir Victor's arm, pale as death, with speechless agony imprinted on every feature--Trixy made her appearance behind the wheel house.

"O Edith, I feel awfully--awfully! I feel like death--I feel--"

She wrenched her arm from the baronet's, rushed wildly to the side, and--Edith's dark, laughing eyes looked up into the blue ones, that no effort of Sir Victor's could _quite_ control. The next moment she was by Trixy's side, leading that limp and pallid heroine to the regions below, whence, for five mortal days, she emerged not, nor did the eye of man rest on Miss Beatrix Stuart.

The weather was fine, but the wind and sea ran tolerably high, and of course everybody mostly was tolerably sick. One day's ordeal sufficed for Edith's tribute to old Neptune; after that, she never felt a qualm. A great deal of her time was spent in waiting upon Aunt Chatty and Trix, both of whom were very far gone indeed. In the case of Miss Stuart, the tortures of jealousy were added to the tortures of sea-sickness. Did Sir Victor walk with the young ladies on deck? Did he walk with _her_, Edith? Did he ever inquire for herself? Oh, it was shameful--shameful that she should be kept prostrate here, unable to lift her head! At this juncture, generally, in her excitement, Trixy did lift it, and the consequence was--woe.

It was full moon before they reached mid-ocean. How Edith enjoyed it, no words can tell. Perhaps it was out of merciful compassion to Trix, but she did not tell her of the long, brisk twilight, mid-day, and moonlight walks she and the baronet took on deck. How, leaning over the bulwarks, they watched the sun set, round and red, into the sea, and the silver sickle May moon rise, like another Aphrodite, out of the waves. She did not tell her, how they sat side by side at dinner, how he lay at her feet, and read aloud for her, in sheltered sunny nooks, how uncommonly friendly and confidential they became altogether, in these first half-dozen days out. People grow intimate in two days at sea, as they would not in two years on land. Was it _all_ gentlemanly courtesy and politeness on the baronet's side? the girl sometimes wondered. She could analyze her own feelings pretty well. Of that fitful, feverish passion called love, described by the country swain as feeling--"hot and dry like--with a pain in the side like," she felt no particle. There was one, Mr. Charles Stuart, lying about in places, looking serene and sunburnt, who saw it all with sleepy, half-closed eyes, and kept his conclusions to himself. "_Kismet_!" he thought; "the will of Allah be done. What is written is written. Sea-sickness is bad enough, without the green-eyed monster. Even Othello, if he had been crossing in a Cunard ship, would have put off the pillow performance until they reached the other side."

One especial afternoon, Edith fell asleep after luncheon, on a sofa, in her own and Trixy's cabin, and slept through dinner and dessert, and only woke with the lighting of the lamps. Trix lay, pale and wretched, gazing out of the porthole, at the glory of moonlight on the heaving sea, as one who sorrows without hope of consolation.

"I hope you enjoyed your forty winks, Edith," she remarked; "what a Rip Van Winkle you are! For my part, I've never slept at all since I came on board this horrid ship! Now, where are you going?"

"To get something to eat from my friend the stewardess," Edith answered; "I see I am too late for dinner."

Miss Darrell went, and got some tea and toast. Then wrapping herself in a blanket shawl, and tying a coquettish red wool hood over her hair, she ascended to the deck.

It was pretty well deserted by the ladies--none the worse for that, Edith thought. The full moon shone with untold splendor, over the vast expanse of tossing sea, heaving with that majestic swell, that never quite lulls on the mighty Atlantic. The gentlemen filled the smoking-room, the "Tabak Parliament" was at its height. She took a camp-stool, and made for her favorite sheltered spot behind the wheel-house. How grand it was--the starry sky, the brilliant white moon, the boundless ocean--that long trail of silvery radiance stretching miles behind. An icy blast swept over the deep, but, wrapped in her big shawl, Edith could defy even that. She forgot Sir Victor and the daring ambition of her life. She sat absorbed in the beauty and splendor of that moonlight on the sea. Very softly, very sweetly, half unconsciously, she began singing "The Young May Moon," when a step behind made her turn her head. It was Sir Victor Catheron. She awoke from her dream--came back to earth, and was of the world worldly, once more. The smile that welcomed him was very bright. She would have blushed if she could; but it is a disadvantage of pale brunettes that they don't blush easily.

"I heard singing, sweet and faint, and I give you my word, Miss Darrell, I thought it might be the Lurline, or a stray mermaid combing her sea-green locks. It is all very beautiful, of course, but are you not afraid of taking cold?"

"I never take cold," Miss Darrell answered; "influenza is an unknown disease. Has the tobacco parliament broken up, that I behold you here?"

"It is half-past eleven--didn't you know it?--and all the lights are out."

"Good Heaven!" Edith cried, starting up aghast; "half-past eleven! What will Trixy say? Really, moon-gazing must be absorbing work. I had no idea it was after ten."

"Stay a moment, Miss Darrell," Sir Victor interposed, "there is