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

/> "Living, I believe. By Heaven! I have half a mind yet to hunt him down, and hand him over to the hangman for the deed he has done!"

"An ancient name and family honor are wonderful things on this side of the Atlantic, a couple of million dollars on ours. They can save the murderer from the gallows. We won't talk about it, Sir Victor--it makes you unhappy I see; only if ever I--if ever I," laughing and blushing a little, "come to be mistress of that big, romantic old house, I shall wall that room up. It will always be a haunted chamber--a Bluebeard closet for me."

"If ever you are mistress," he repeated. "Edith, my dearest, when will you be?"

"Who knows? Never, perhaps."

"Edith--again!"

"Well, who can tell. I may die--you may die--something may happen. I can't realize that I ever will be. I can't think of myself as Lady Catheron."

"Edith, I command you! Name the day."

"Now, my dear Sir Victor--"

"Dear Victor, without the prefix; let all formality end between us. Why need we wait? You are your own mistress, I my own master; I am desperately in love--I want to be married. I _will_ be married. There is nothing to wait for--I _won't_ wait. Edith shall it be--this is the last of May--shall it be the first week of July?"

"No, sir; it shall not, nor the first week of August. We don't do things in this desperate sort of hot haste."

"But why should we delay? What is there to delay for? I shall have a brain-fever if I am compelled to wait longer than August. Be reasonable, Edith; don't let it be later than August."

"Now, now, now, Sir Victor Catheron, August is not to be thought of. I shall not marry you for ages to come--not until Lady Helena Powyss gives her full and free consent."

"Lady Helena shall give her full and free consent in a week; she could not refuse me anything longer if she tried. Little tyrant! if you cared for me one straw, you would not object like this."

"Yes I would. Nobody marries in this impetuous fashion. I won't hear of August. Besides, there is my engagement with Mrs. Stuart. I have promised to talk French and German all through the Continent for them this summer."

"I will furnish Mrs. Stuart a substitute with every European language at her finger-ends. Seriously, Edith, you must consider that contract at an end--my promised wife can be no one's paid companion. Pardon me, but you must see this, Edith."

"I see it," she answered gravely. She had her own reasons for not wishing to accompany the Stuart family now. And after all, why should she insist on postponing the marriage?

"You are relenting--I see it in your face," he exclaimed imploringly. "Edith! Edith! shall it be the first week of September?"

She smiled and looked at him as she had done early this eventful morning, when she had said "Yes!"

"As brain-fever threatens if I refuse, I suppose you must have your way. But talk of the willfulness of women after this!"

"Then it shall be the first of September--St Partridge Day?"

"It shall be St. Partridge Day."


CHAPTER XIII.

HOW CHARLEY TOOK IT.

Meantime the long sunny hours, that passed so pleasantly for these plighted lovers, lagged drearily enough for one young lady at Powyss Place--Miss Beatrix Stuart.

She had sent for her mother and told her the news. Placid Aunt Chatty lifted her meek eyebrows and opened her dim eyes as she listened.

"Sir Victor Catheron going to marry our Edith! Dear me! I am sure I thought it was you, Trixy, all the time. And Edith will be a great lady after all. Dear me!"

That was all Mrs. Stuart had to say about it. She went back to her tatting with a serene quietude that exasperated her only daughter beyond bounds.

"I wonder if an earthquake would upset ma's equanimity!" thought Trix savagely. "Well, wait until Charley comes! We'll see how he takes it."

Misery loves company. If she was to suffer the pangs of disappointment herself, it would be some comfort to see Charley suffer also. And Trix was not a bad-hearted girl either, mind--it was simply human nature.

Charley and the captain had gone off exploring the wonders and antiquities of Chester. Edith and Sir Victor were nobody knew where. Lady Helena had a visitor, and was shut up with her. Trix had nothing but her novel, and what were all the novels in Mudie's library to her this bitter day?

The long, red spears of the sunset were piercing the green depths of fern and brake, when the two young men rode home. A servant waylaid Mr. Stuart and delivered his sister's message. She wanted to see him at once on important business.

"Important business!" murmured Charley, opening his eyes.

But he went promptly without waiting to change his dress.

"How do, Trix?" he said, sauntering in. "Captain Hammond's compliments, and how's the ankle?"

He threw himself--no, Charley never threw himself--he slowly extended his five-feet-eleven of manhood on a sofa, and awaited his sister's reply.

"Oh, the ankle's just the same--getting better, I suppose," Trix answered, rather crossly. "I didn't send for you to talk about my ankle. Much you, or Captain Hammond, or any one else cares whether I have an ankle at all or not."

"My dear Trix, a young lady's ankle is always a matter of profound interest and admiration to every well-regulated masculine mind."

"Bah! Charley, you'll never guess what I have to tell!"

"My child, I don't intend to try. I have been sight-seeing all the afternoon, interviewing cathedrals, and walls, and rows, and places, until I give you my word you might knock me down with a feather. If you have anything preying on your mind--and I see you have--out with it. Suspense is painful."

He closed his eyes, and calmly awaited the news. It came--like a bolt from a bow.

"Charley, Sir Victor Catheron has proposed to Edith, and Edith has accepted him!"

Charley opened his eyes, and fixed them upon her--not the faintest trace of surprise or any other earthly emotion upon his fatigued face.

"Ah--and _that's_ your news! Poor child! After all your efforts, it's rather hard upon you. But if you expect me to be surprised, you do your only brother's penetration something less than justice. It has been an evident case of spoons--apparent to the dullest intellect from the first. I have long outlived the tender passion myself, but in others I always regard it with a fatherly--nay--let me say, even grandfatherly interest. And so they are going to 'live and love together through many changing years,' as the poet says. Bless you," said Charley, lifting his hand over an imaginary pair of lovers at his feet--"bless you, my children, and be happy!"

And this was all! And she had thought he was in love with Edith himself! This was all--closing his eyes again as though sinking sweetly to sleep. It was too much for Trix.

"O Charley!" she burst forth, "you _are_ such a fool!"

Mr. Stuart rose to his feet.

"Overpowered by the involuntary homage of this assembly, I rise to--"

"You're an idiot--there!" went on Trix; "a lazy, stupid idiot! You're in love with Edith yourself, and you could have had her if you wished, for she likes you better than Sir Victor, and then Sir Victor might have proposed to me. But no--you must go dawdling about, prowling, and prancing, and let her slip through your fingers!"

"Prowling and prancing! Good Heaven, Trix! I ask you soberly, as man to man, did you ever see me prowl or prance in the whole course of my life?"

"Bah-h-h!" said Trix, with a perfect shake of scorn in the interjection. "I've no patience with you! Get out of my room--do!"

Mr. Stuart, senior, was the only one who did _not_ take it quietly. His bile rose at once.

"Edith! Edith Darrell! Fred Darrell's penniless daughter! Beatrix Stuart, have you let this young baronet slip through your fingers in this ridiculous way after all?"

"I never let him slip--he never was in my fingers," retorted Trix, nearly crying. "It's just my usual luck. I don't want him--he's a stupid noodle--that's what he is. Edith's better-looking than I am. Any one can see that with half an eye, and when I was sick on that horrid ship, she had everything her own way. I did my best--yes I did, pa--and I think it's a little too hard to be scolded in this way, with my poor sprained ankle and everything!"

"Well, there, there, child!" exclaimed Mr. Stuart, testily, for he was fond of Trix; "don't cry. There's as good fish in the sea as ever were caught. As to being better-looking than you, I don't believe a word of it. I never liked your dark complected women myself. You're the biggest and the best-looking young woman of the two, by George!" (Mr. Stuart's grammar was hardly up to the standard.) "There's this young fellow, Hammond--his father's a lord--rich, too, if his grandfather _did_ make it cotton-spinning. Now, why can't you set your cap for _him_? When the old rooster dies, this young chap will be a lord himself, and a lord's better than a baronet, by George! Come downstairs, Trixy, and put on your stunningest gown, and see if you can't hook the military swell."

Following these pious parental counsels, Miss Trix _did_ assume her "stunningest" gown, and with the aid of her brother and a crutch, managed to reach the dining-room. There Lady Helena, pale and preoccupied, joined them. No allusion was made at dinner to _the_ topic--a visible restraint was upon all.

"Old lady don't half like it," chuckled Stuart _pere_. "And no wonder, by George! If it was Charley I shouldn't like it myself. I must speak to Charley after dinner--there's this Lady Gwendoline. He's got to marry the upper-crust too. Lady Gwendoline Stuart wouldn't sound bad, by George! I'm glad there's to be a baronet in the family, even if it isn't Trixy. A cousin's daughter's better than nothing."

So in the first opportunity after dinner Mr. Stuart presented his congratulations as blandly as possible to the future Lady Catheron. In the next opportunity he attacked his son on the subject of Lady Gwendoline.

"Take example by your Cousin Edith, my boy," said Mr. Stuart in a large voice, standing with his hands under his coat-tails. "That girl's a credit to her father and family, by George! Look at the match _she's_ making without a rap to bless herself with. Now you've a fortune in prospective, young man, that would buy and sell half a dozen of these beggarly lordlings. You've youth and good looks, and good manners, or if you haven't you ought to have, and I say you shall marry a title, by George! There's this Lady Gwendoline--she ain't rich, but she's an earl's daughter. Now what's to hinder your going for _her_?"

Charley looked up meekly from the depths of his chair.

"As you like it, governor. In all matters matrimonial I simply consider myself as non-existent. Only this, I _will_ premise--I am ready to marry her, but not to court her. As you truthfully observe, I have youth, good looks, and good manners, but in all things appertaining to love and courtship, I'm as ignorant as the child unborn. Matrimony is an ill no man can hope to escape--love-making _is_. As a prince in my own right, I claim that