A Terrible Secret Part 22

The fortnight ended, the fish were caught, he went back, and the dull days and the long nights, the cooking, darning, mending began again, and went on until madness would have been a relief. It was the old story of the Sleeping Beauty waiting for the prince to come, and wake her into life and love with his kiss. Only in this instance the prince had come and gone, and left Beauty, in the sulks, behind.

She was eighteen years old and sick of her life. And just when disgust and discontent were taking palpable form, and she was debating between a jump into Sandypoint bay and running off, came Charley, with his mother's letter. From that hour the story of Edith Darrell's life began.

CHAPTER III.

TRIXY'S PARTY.

Two weeks sufficed for Miss Darrell's preparations. A quant.i.ty of new linen, three new dresses, one hat, one spring sacque--that was all.

Mr. Darrell had consented--what was there he could have refused his darling? He had consented, hiding the bitter pang it cost him, deep in his own quiet heart. It was the loss of her mother over again; the tender pa.s.sion and the present Mrs. Darrell were two facts perfectly incompatible.

Mrs. Darrell aided briskly in the preparation--to tell the truth, she was not sorry to be rid of her step-daughter, between whom and herself perpetual war raged. Edith as a worker was a failure; she went about the dingy house, in her dingy dresses, with the air of an out-at-elbows d.u.c.h.ess. She snubbed the boarders, she boxed the juvenile Darrell's ears, she "sa.s.sed" the mistress of the house.

"It speaks volumes for your amiability, Dithy," Charley remarked, "the intense eagerness and delight, with which everybody in this establishment hails your departure. Four dirty little Darrells run about the pa.s.sages with their war-whoop, 'Dithy's going--hooray! Now we'll have fun!' Your step-mother's sere and yellow visage beams with bliss; even the young gentlemen who are lodged and boarded, Greek-ed and Latin-ed here, wear faces of suppressed relief, that tells its own tale to the student of human nature. Your welfare must be unspeakably precious to them, Edie, when they bear their approaching bereavement so well."

He paused. The speech was a lengthy one, and lengthy speeches mostly exhausted Mr. Stuart. He lay back, watching his fair relative as she sat sewing near, with lazy, half-closed eyes.

Her work dropped in her lap, a faint flush rose up over her dusk face.

"Charley," she responded, gravely, "I don't wonder you say this--it is true, and n.o.body feels it more than I. I _am_ a disagreeable creature, a selfish nuisance, an idle, discontented kill-joy. I only wonder, you are not afraid to take me with you at all."

Mr. Stuart sat up, rather surprised.

"My dearest coz, _don't_ be so tremendously in earnest. If I had thought you were going to take it seriously--"

"Let us be serious for once--we have all our lives left for quarrelling," said Miss Darrell, as though quarrelling were a pleasant recreation. "I sit down and try to think sometimes why I am so miserable--so wretched in my present life, why I hail the prospect of a new one with such delight. I see other girls--nicer, cleverer girls than I am every way, and their lives suffice for them--the daily, domestic routine that is most horrible drudgery to me, pleases and satisfies them. It must be that I have an incapacity for life; I daresay when the novelty and gloss wear off, I shall tire equally of the life I am going to. A new dress, a dance, a beau, and the hope of a prospective husband suffices for the girls I speak of. For me--none of your sarcastic smiles, sir--the thought of a future husband is--"

"Only vanity and vexation of spirit. But there _is_ a future husband.

You are forced to admit that, Dithy. I wonder what he is to be like?

A modern Sir Launcelot, with the beauty of all the G.o.ds, the courage of a Coeur de Lion, the bow of a Chesterfield, and the purse of Fortunatus. That's the photo, isn't it?"

"No, sir--not a bit like it. The purse of a Fortunatus, if you like--I ask nothing more. The Sir Launcelots of life, if they exist at all, are mostly poor men, and I don't want anything to do with poor men. My marriage is to be a purely business transaction--I settled _that_ long ago. He may have the form and face of a Satyr; he may have seventy years, so that he be worth a million or so, I will drop my best courtesy when he asks, and say, 'Yes, and thanky, sir.' If the Apollo himself, knelt before me with an empty purse, I should turn my back upon him in pity and disdain."

"Is that meant for me, Edie?" Mr. Stuart inquired, rising on his elbow, and admiringly gazing at his own handsome face in the gla.s.s. "Because if it is, don't excite yourself. Forewarned is forearmed--I'm not going to ask you."

"I never thought you were," Edith said, laughing. "I never aspired so high. As well love some bright particular star, etcetera, etcetera, as the only son of James Stuart, Esquire, lineal descendant of the Princes of Scotland, and banker of Wall Street. No, Charley, I know what _you_ will do. You'll drift through life for the next three or four years, as you have drifted up to the present, well looking, well dressed, well mannered, and then some day your father will come to you and say gruffly, 'Charles!' (Edith grows dramatic as she narrates--it is a husky masculine voice that speaks:) 'Here's Miss Petroleum's father, with a million and a half--only child--order a suit of new clothes and go and ask her to marry you!' And you will look at him with a helpless sigh, and go. Your father will select your wife, sir, and you'll take her, like a good boy, when you're told. I shouldn't wonder now, but that it is to select a wife for you, and a husband for Trixy, he is taking this projected trip to Europe."

"Shouldn't you? Neither should I. Never wonder. Against my principles,"

Charley murmurs.

"There are plenty of t.i.tled aristocracy abroad--so I am told--ready to silver-gild their coronets by a union with plutocracy. Plenty Lady Janes and Lady Marys ready to sell themselves to the highest bidder."

"As Edith Darrell is?"

"As Edith Darrell is. It's all very fine talking of love and devotion, and the emptiness of life without. Believe me, if one has plenty of money one can dispense with love. I've read a good many novels, but they haven't turned my head on _that_ subject. From all I've read, indeed, I should think it must be a very uncomfortable sort of intermittent fever, indeed. Don't love anybody except yourself, and it is out of the power of any human being to make you _very_ wretched."

"A sentiment whose truth is only equaled by its--selfishness."

"Yes, it is selfish; and it is your thoroughly selfish people, who get the best of everything in this world. I am selfish and worldly--ambitious and heartless, and all that is abominable. I may as well own it. You'll find it out for yourself soon."

"A most unnecessary acknowledgment, my dear child--it is patent to the dullest observer. But, now, Edith--look here--this is serious, mind!"

He raises himself again on his elbow, and looks, with a curious smile into her darkly-earnest, cynical young face. "Suppose I am madly in love with you--'madly in love' is the correct phrase, isn't it?--suppose I am at your feet, going through all the phases of the potential mood, 'commanding, exhorting, entreating' you to marry me--you wouldn't say no, would you, Edie? You like me--don't deny it.

You know you do--like me well enough to marry me to-morrow. Would you refuse me in spite of my dependence on my father, and my empty purse?"

He took her hand, and held it tightly, despite her struggles.

"Would you, Edie?" he says, putting his arm around her waist. "I'm not a sentimental fellow, but I believe in love. Come! you wouldn't--you couldn't bid me go."

Her color had risen--that lovely rose-pink color, that lit her brunette face into such beauty--but she resolutely freed herself, and met his half-tender, half-merry glance, full.

"I would," she said, "if I--liked you so, that you filled my whole heart. Let me go, sir, and no more of this nonsense. I know what I am talking about, and what comes of marrying for love. There was my own mother, she left a rich and luxurious home, wealthy suitors, all the comforts and elegances of life, without which life isn't worth living, and ran away with papa. Then followed long years of poverty, discomfort, illness, and miserable grubbing. She never complained--perhaps she wasn't even very unhappy; her's wasn't the sort of love that flies out of the window when poverty comes in at the door--she just faded away and died. For myself I have been dissatisfied with _my_ lot ever since I can remember--pining for the glory and grandeur of this wicked world. There is but one way in which they can ever be mine--by marriage. If marriage will not bring them, then I will go to my grave Edith Darrell."

"Which I don't think you will," Mr. Stuart responded. "Young ladies like you, who set out on the search-matrimonial with lots of common-sense, worldliness, selfishness, and mercenary motives, generally reach the goal. It's a fair enough exchange--so much youth and good looks for so many thousand dollars. I wish you all success, Miss Darrell, in your laudable undertaking. It is well we should understand each other, at once and forever, or even I some day might be tempted to make a fool of myself. Your excellent counsels, my dearest cousin, will be invaluable to me, should my lagging footsteps falter by the way. Edith! where have you learned to be so hard, so worldly, so--if you will pardon me--so unwomanly?"

"Is it unwomanly?" she repeated dreamily. "Well, perhaps it is. I am honest at least--give me credit for that. My own hard life has taught me, books have taught me, looking at my mother and listening to my step-mother have taught me. I feel old at eighteen--old and tired. I am just one of those girls, I think, who turn out very good or very bad women, as fate deals with them. It's not too late yet to draw back, Charley. Your mother can easily get another young lady to do the French and German business. You can tell her I don't suit, and leave me at home."

"Not too late to draw back," he said, with his indolent smile. "Is there ever such a thing as drawing back at all? What is done is done.

I couldn't go without you now, if I tried. O, don't look alarmed, I don't mean anything. You amuse and interest me, that is all. You're something of a study--entirely different from the genus young lady I'm accustomed to. Only--keep your frankness for Cousin Charley, he's harmless; don't display it to the rest of the world. It might spoil your chances. Even senile millionnaires don't care to walk into the trap, unless the springs are hidden in roses. Come, throw down that endless sewing, and let's have a walk on the beach. Who knows when we may see the sun go down, together again, over the cla.s.sic waters of Sandypoint Bay."

Edith laughed, but she rose to obey.

"And I thought you were not sentimental. One would think it the Bay of Naples. However, as we start to-morrow, I don't mind going down and bidding the old rocks and sands good-by."

She put on her hat, and the two went wandering away together, to watch the sun set over the sea. In the rosy light of the spring sunset, the fis.h.i.+ng boats drifted on the s.h.i.+ning waters, and the fisherman's chant came borne to their ears.

"It reminds me of that other April evening two years ago, Dithy, when we came down here to say good-by. You cried then at parting--do you remember? But you were only sixteen, poor child, and knew no better.

You wouldn't cry now, would you, for any man in the universe?"

"Not for Charley Stuart certainly--he needn't think it."

"He doesn't think it, my pet; he never looks for impossibilities. I wonder if that night in the snow were to come again if you'd risk your life now, as you did then?"

"Risk my life! What bos.h.!.+ There was no risk; and bad as I am, and heartless as I've grown, I don't think--I _don't_ think I'd walk away, and leave any poor wretch to die. Yes, Charley, if the night in the snow came over again, I'd do now as I did then."

"I don't believe it was a kindness after all," Charley responds. "I have a presentiment that a day will come, Dithy, when I'll hate you.

I shouldn't have suffered much if you had let me freeze to death. And I've a strong prescience (is that the word) that I'll fall in love with you some day, and be jilted, and undergo untold torture, and hate you with a perfect frenzy. It will be a very fatiguing experience, but I feel in my bones that it is to be."

"Indeed! A Saul among the prophets. I shall not be surprised, however; it is my usual fate to be hated. And now, as we seem to have drifted into disagreeable and personal sort of talk, suppose we change the subject? There is a dory yonder; if your indolent sultans.h.i.+p can bear the labor of steering, I'll give you a last row across the bay."

They take the dory and glide away. Charley lies back, his hat pulled over his eyes, smoking a cigar and steering. She has the oars, the red sunlight is on her face. Edith defies tan and sunburn. She looks at lazy Charley, and sings as she pulls, a saucy smile of defiance on her lips:

"It was on a Monday morning, Right early in the year, That Charley came to our town, The young Chevalier.

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