A Terrible Secret Part 24

"Dear, thoughtful Charley!" she whispers gratefully. "What would ever have become of me but for him?"

She selects one or two bits of scarlet blossom and green spray, and artistically twists them in the rich waves of her hair. She takes one last glance at her own pretty image in the mirror, sees that fan, lace-handkerchief, and adornment generally, are in their places, and then trips away and goes down.

In elegant evening costume, looking unutterably handsome and well-dressed, Mr. Charles Stuart stands at the foot of the grand stairway, waiting. He looks at her as she stands in the full glare of the gasaliers.

"White muslin, gold and coral, pink roses, and no chignon. My dear Miss Darrell, taking you as a whole, I think I have seen worse-looking young women in my life."

He draws her hand through his arm, with this enthusiastic remark, and Edith finds herself in a blaze of light and a crowd of brilliantly dressed people. Three long drawing-rooms are thrown open, _en suite_; beyond is the ball-room, with its waxed flows and invisible musicians.

Flowers, gaslight, jewels, handsome women, and gallant men are everywhere; the band is cras.h.i.+ng out a pulse-tingling waltz, and still Edith hears and sees, and moves in a dream.

"Come," Charley says. His arm is around her waist, and they whirl away among the waltzers. Edith waltzes well, so does Charley. She feels as though she were floating on air, not on earth. Then it is over, and she is being introduced to people, to resplendent young ladies and almost equally resplendent young gentlemen. Charley resigns her to one of these latter, and she glides through a mazurka. That too ends, and as it grows rather warm, her partner leads her away to a cool music-room, whence proceed melodious sounds. It is Trixy at the piano, informing a select audience in shrill soprano, and in the character of the "Queen of the May," that "She had been wild and wayward, but she was not wayward _now_." Edith's partner finds her a seat and volunteers to go for an ice. As she sits fanning herself, she sees Charley approaching with a young man of about his own age, taller than he is--fairer, with a look altogether somehow of a different nationality. He has large blue eyes, very fair hair, and the blondest of complexions. Instinctively she knows who it is.

"Ah, Edith," Charley says, "here you are. I have been searching for you. Miss Darrell, allow me to present to you Sir Victor Catheron."

CHAPTER IV.

"UNDER THE GASLIGHT."

Two darkly solemn eyes look up into Sir Victor Catheron's face. Both bow. Both murmur the _pianissimo_ imbecility requisite on such occasions, and Edith Darrell is acquainted with a baronet.

With, a baronet! Only yesterday, as it were, she was darning hose, and ironing linen at home, going about the dismal house slipshod and slatternly. Now she is in the midst of a brilliant ball, diamonds sparkling around her, and an English baronet of fabulous wealth and ancestry asking her for the favor of the next waltz! Something ridiculous and absurd about it all, struck her; she felt an idiotic desire to laugh aloud. It was all unreal, all a dream. She would awake presently, to hear her step-mother's shrill call to come and help in the kitchen, and the howls of the juvenile Darrells down the pa.s.sage.

A familiar voice rouses her.

"You'll not forget, I hope, Edith," Charley is saying, "that next redowa is mine. At present I am going to meander through the lancers with Mrs. Featherbrain."

He takes her tablets, coolly writes his name, smiles, shows his white teeth, says "Au revoir," and is gone. She and the baronet are alone.

What shall she say to him? She feels a whimsical sort of trepidation as she flutters her fan. As yet the small-talk of society, is Sanscrit, to this young lady from Sandypoint. Sir Victor leans lightly against the arm of her chair, and looks down upon her as she sits, with flushed cheeks, half smiling lips, and long black lashes drooping. He is thinking what a wonderfully bright and charming face it is--for a brunette.

For Sir Victor Catheron does not fancy brunettes. He has his ideal, and sees in her the future Lady Catheron. In far-off Ches.h.i.+re there is a certain Lady Gwendoline; she is an earl's daughter, the owner of two soft blue eyes, a complexion of pink and snow, a soft, trained voice and feathery halo of amber hair. Lady Gwendoline is his ideal of fair, sweet womanhood, turning coldly from all the rest of the world to hold out her arms to one happy possessor. The vision of Lady Gwendoline as he saw her last, the morning suns.h.i.+ne searching her fair English face and finding no flaw in it, rises for a second before him--why, he does not know. Then a triumphal burst of music crashes out, and be is looking down once more upon Edith Darrell, in her white dress and coral ornaments, her dark hair and pink roses.

"You seem quite like an old acquaintance, Miss Darrell," he says, in his slow, pleasant, English accented voice; "our mutual friend, the prince, has told me about his adventure in the snow, and your heroism."

"The prince?" she repeats, interrogatively, and Sir Victor laughs.

"Ah! you don't know. They call him the prince here--Prince Charlie. I don't know why, I'm sure, unless it be that his name is Charles Edward Stuart, and that he is the prince of good fellows. You have no idea how delighted I am that he--that the whole family are going across with us in May. You accompany them, I understand, Miss Darrell."

"As companion and interpreter on the continent," Miss Darrell answers, looking up at him very steadily. "Yes."

"And you will like the continent, I know," Sir Victor goes on. "You will like Paris, of course. All Americans go to Paris. You will meet scores of your countrymen in every continental city."

"I am not sure that _that_ is an advantage," responds the young lady coolly. "About my liking it, there can be no question. It has been the dream of my life--a dream I thought as likely to be realized a month ago, as that I should take a trip to the moon. For you, Sir Victor, I suppose every nook and corner of Europe, is as familiar to you, as your own native Ches.h.i.+re?"

The brown brilliant eyes look up at him frankly. She is at her ease at last, and Sir Victor thinks again, what beautiful eyes, brown eyes are.

For a dark young person, she is really the most attractive young person he has ever met.

"Ches.h.i.+re," he repeats with a smile, "how well you know my birthplace.

No, not my birthplace exactly, for I was born in London. I'm a c.o.c.kney, Miss Darrell. Before you all go abroad, you are to come and spend a week or two down in my sunny Ches.h.i.+re; both my aunt and I insist upon it. You don't know how many kindnesses--how many pleasant days and nights we owe to our friends, the Stuarts. It shall be our endeavor when we reach England to repay them in kind. May I ask, Miss Darrell, if you have met my aunt?"

"No," Edith replies, fluttering a little again. "I have not even seen Lady Helena as yet."

"Then allow me the pleasure of making you acquainted. I think you will like her. I am very sure she will like you."

The color deepens on Edith's dark cheek; she arises and takes his proffered arm. How gracefully deferential and courteous he is. It is all custom, no doubt, and means nothing, but it is wonderfully pleasant and flattering. For the moment it seems as though he were conscious of no other young lady in the scheme of creation than Miss Darrell--a flirting way a few young men cultivate.

They walk slowly down the long brilliant rooms, and many eyes turn and look after them. Every one knows the extremely blonde young baronet--the dark damsel on his arm is as yet a stranger to most of them. "Dused pretty girl, you know," is the unanimous verdict of masculine New York; "who is she?" "Who _is_ that young lady in the dowdy white muslin and old fas.h.i.+oned corals?" asks feminine New York, and both stare as they receive the same whispered reply: "A poor relation--a country cousin, or something of the sort, going to Europe with them as companion to Beatrix."

Edith sees the looks, and the color deepens to carnation in her face.

Her brown eyes gleam, she lifts her head with haughty grace, and flashes back almost defiance at these insolent starers. She _feels_ what it is they are saying of her, and Sir Victor's high bred courtesy and deference, go to the very depths of her heart by contrast. She likes him; he interests her already; there is something in his face, she can hardly tell what,--a sort of sombre shadow that underlies all his smiling society manner. In repose and solitude, the prevailing expression of that face will be melancholy, and yet why? Surely at three-and-twenty, life can have shown nothing but her suns.h.i.+ne and roses, to this curled darling of fortune.

A stout, elderly lady, in gray moire and chantilly lace, sits on a sort of a throne of honor, beside Mrs. Stuart, and a foreign gentleman, from Was.h.i.+ngton, all ribbons and orders. To this stout, elderly lady, as Lady Helena Powyss, his aunt, Sir Victor presents Miss Darrell.

The kindly eyes of the English lady turn upon the dark, handsome face of the American girl; the pleasant voice says a few pleasant words.

Miss Darrell bows gracefully, lingers a few moments, is presented to the ribbon-and-starred foreigner, and learns he is Russian Amba.s.sador at Was.h.i.+ngton. Then the music of their dance strikes up, both smilingly make their adieux, and hasten to the ball-room.

Up and down the long waxed room, in and out with gorgeous young New York, in all the hues of the rainbow, the air heavy with perfume, the matchless Gounod waltz music cras.h.i.+ng over all, on the arm of a baronet--worth, how much did Trixy say? thirty or forty thousand a year?--around her slim white muslin waist Edith is in her dream still--she does not want to wake--Trixy whirls by, flushed and breathless, and nods laughingly as she disappears. Charley, looking calm and languid even in the dance, flits past, clasping gay little Mrs. Featherbrain, and gives her a patronizing nod. And Edith's thought is--"If this could only go on forever!" But the golden moments of life fly--the leaden ones only lag--we all know that to our cost.

The waltz ends.

"A most delicious waltz," says Sir Victor gayly. "I thought dancing bored me--I find I like it. How well you waltz, Miss Darrell, like a Parisienne--but all American young ladies are like Frenchwomen. Take this seat, and let me fetch you a water ice."

He leads her to a chair and departs. As she sits there, half smiling and fluttering her fan, looking very lovely, Charley saunters up with his late partner. "If your royal highness will permit," cries Mrs.

Featherbrain, laughing and panting, "I will take a seat. How cool and comfortable you look, Miss Darrell. May I ask what you have done with Sir Victor?"

"Sir Victor left me here, and told me he would go for a water ice. If I look cool, it is more than I feel--the thermometer of this room must stand at a hundred in the shade."

"A water ice," repeats Mrs. Featherbrain with a sigh; "just what I have been longing for, this past half hour. Charley, I heard _you_ say something about bringing me one, some time ago, didn't I? But I know of old what you're promises are worth. You know the adage, Miss Darrell--never more true than in this instance, 'Put not your trust in princes.'"

Miss Darrell's dark, disdainful eyes look full at the frivolous young matron. Mrs. Featherbrain and Mr. Stuart have been devoted to each other all the evening.

"I know the adage," she answers cooly, "but I confess I don't see the application."

"What! don't you know Charley's sobriquet of Prince Charley? Why he has been the Prince ever since he was five years old, partly on account of his absurd name, partly because of his absurd grand seigneur airs. I think it fits--don't you?"

"And if I were Prince," Charley interposes, before Miss Darrell can answer, "my first royal act would be to order Featherbrain to the deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat, and make his charming relict Princess consort, as she has long, alas! been queen of my affections!"

He lays his white-kidded hand on the region of his heart, and bows profoundly. Mrs. Featherbrain's shrill, rather silly laugh, rings out--she hits him a blow with her perfumed fan.

"You precocious little boy!" she says, "as if children of your age knew what their affections meant. Miss Darrell, you'll not credit it I'm sure, but this juvenile cousin of yours--Charley, you told me, Miss Darrell, was your cousin--was my first love--actually--my first!"

"And she jilted me in cold blood for Featherbrain. Since then I've been a blighted being--hiding, like the Spartan chap in the story, the fox that preys on my vitals, and going through life with the hollow mockery of a smile on my lips."

Again Mrs. Featherbrain's foolish little laugh peals out. She leans back, almost against him, looks up, and half whispers something very daring in French.

Edith turns away disgusted, gleams of disdainful scorn in, her s.h.i.+ning hazel eyes. What a little painted giggling idiot the woman is--what fools most young men are! What business have married women flirting, and how much more sensible and agreeable Englishmen are than Americans.