Gladys, the Reaper Part 58

'What a colour you have, Freda. You thouldn't draw tho much. I with I had a tathte for drawing. Colonel Vaughan drawth tho well!'

'What can his drawing well have to do with your drawing?'

'He would look over my drawing then ath he doth yourth, Freda. He thaith you are very clever. But you mutht be nearly five-and-twenty, Freda; and he thaith no woman ought ever to be more than twenty-one,'

'When did he favour you with that remark? I think I once heard him say twenty-five was the most charming age of all.'

At this part of the conversation the subject of it entered the room, and whilst Freda's colour rose higher and higher, and she stooped more closely over her drawing, Miss Nugent got up and greeted him with great delight. Freda made up her mind not to speak, that she might listen to the conversation that ensued.

'Are all the preparations progressing, Miss Nugent? What are we to do to celebrate the great event?' asked the colonel.

'There ith to be an oxth roathed for the poor people, and tea on the lawn, and a ball in the evening, you know, colonel.'

'Oh, yes, I am looking forwards to that, and to the first dance.

Remember you promised me.'

'Oh, yeth, I am thure of plenty of partnerth.'

'I should imagine so. We men must have very bad taste if we let you sit down. Did you walk here this morning?'

'No, I rode. The hortheth are taken round. I have been here a long time with Freda. It ith thuch a nice morning, ithn't it, Colonel Vaughan?'

'Delightful! What do you mean to do when you are your own mistress? I quite fancy how grand you will feel when you have struck the magic hour.'

'I darethay I thall be jutht the thame, unleth I get married.'

Freda glances up, and perceives a smile of amus.e.m.e.nt on Colonel Vaughan's lips, and the usual calm inanity on Miss Nugent's handsome features.

'That will depend on yourself, I am sure,' said the colonel.

Freda looks again, and sees the colonel's magnificent eyes fixed on the young lady, who returns his glance, and simpers out,--

'I darethay it will.'

Colonel Vaughan turns suddenly, and encounters Freda's glance.

'How does the drawing get on Freda? Capitally! What a sky! quite artistic.'

This is said whilst looking over Freda's shoulder, but she does not respond to the remark.

'I wath jutht thaying I with I could draw. It mutht be thuth a nithe amuthement.'

'Very. How is Lady Mary, to-day? I am ashamed to say I forgot to ask for her.'

'Very well, thank you. The thaid you promithed to come over and help to arrange the decorationth. I hope you will.'

'Thank you, yes. Perhaps Miss Gwynne will ride over with me to-morrow; will you, Freda?'

'I am engaged to-morrow,' said Freda shortly.

'You will come at any rate, if Freda won't?' said Miss Nugent; 'the alwayth thayth the ith engaged when we athk her. Now, don't be engaged on Thurthday. I muth go now; will you be tho kind ath to ring for the hortheth, Colonel Vaughan?'

The horses were ordered, and the colonel a.s.sisted the young heiress to mount. She looked remarkably well on horseback, and even Freda was obliged to allow that she and her grey mare would have made a fine equestrian statue. She saw Colonel Vaughan look at her, and even watch her down the drive. When he returned to the drawing-room, he said,--

'What is the matter, Miss Freda? Have the domestic deities been adverse this morning? I am afraid you are very--cross,'

'Thank you, Colonel Vaughan. I am not at all--cross.'

'Have I had the misfortune to offend you?'

'You? by no means. But I do not wish to a.s.sist in any of the Nugent decorations. I am not so fond of the family as you may imagine; Lady Mary and Miss Nugent are less than indifferent to me. Lady Mary is a mere manoeuvrer, that no straightforward person could like; and Miss Nugent is a mere handsome wax figure, with such clever machinery inside, that she can literally say the words, "mamma thaith." I have heard of a doll who could say "mamma," but she is still cleverer.'

'Colonel Vaughan bit his lips, knit his forehead, but smiled. 'You are severe upon your neighbours, Freda.'

'Do you admire them, then? do you think Miss Nugent altogether charming?

or will she be perfect in your eyes the day after to-morrow?'

'If perfection consists in being a beauty and an heiress, I need not go away from Glanyravon to seek one, Freda.'

'Do you stereotype your compliments? I hear that you pay them wherever you go, and I hate compliments, particularly from people whose good opinion I value. Besides, I am neither a beauty nor an heiress, and to be complimented in almost the same words as Miss Nugent is too contemptible.'

'You do not suppose that I cla.s.s you together, Freda?'

'I am thankful to say that you cannot do that, Colonel Vaughan, at least if I know myself at all; but, after all, I may be infinitely her inferior.'

Freda got up from her drawing with a very flushed face. She knew that she had said more than she meant to say, and that Colonel Vaughan was scrutinising her with his calm, collected mind and penetrating eyes.

'I am going out now, and you promised to ride with papa, I think,' she said abruptly.

'But you must not go until you have told me how I have displeased you,'

said Colonel Vaughan, rising and detaining her. He had such a power over her that he always wormed her thoughts out of her.

'I did not like to hear you saying what you did not mean, to Miss Nugent,' said Freda, as if she were obliged to make a confession; 'and I think it beneath a man like you to pay frivolous compliments to a girl you must despise.'

'Oh, is that all! I make a point of complimenting handsome girls, _pour pa.s.ser le temps_; it is the only way of getting on with half of them.

You must forgive me this once.'

Freda looked at him, and even he, clever as he was, could not tell whether her glance expressed pity, contempt, or love. She turned away, and left the room without speaking; he made another movement to detain her, but she was gone; his thoughts were as follows:--

'Charming girl! yes, she is charming: of a truthful, n.o.ble, trusting nature; still too _p.r.o.noncee_ for a woman. I scarcely think I love, much as I must admire that sort of girl; and as a wife, I should be afraid of her. Yet she provokes me, interests me. She is jealous of those Nugents, and if she doesn't take care, they will cut her out, mother and daughter, with their manoeuvres and wax; and she will be heiress of Glanyravon no longer. Better the waxen heiress, Miss Nugent, with thirty thousand pounds in possession in some thirty-six hours, than the iron heiress, Miss Gwynne, with Glanyravon _in futuro_.

'Moreover, the one may be moulded into any shape one pleases--the other must have her own opinion, and her own way, unless a man beat her into subjection. Certainly, few people were ever more fortunately, or perplexingly placed, than I am just now.

'Between two young women, handsome, rich, of good family; if I mistake not, in love with me, and to be had for the asking. But if I married Freda, Mr Gwynne would marry Lady Nugent directly; and then one could tell what would become of the property. If, on the other hand, I were to marry Miss Nugent, I should incur the utmost contempt of which Miss Gwynne is capable, and should not wholly esteem myself. But why am I thinking of marrying at all? Because I am forty years old, and found a grey hair in my whiskers yesterday; because I am tired of an unsettled life, and should like to clear off the old place, and end my days there; and because, after all, a married man has a better position than a single one. If that girl Gladys were in the place of either heiress, I would not hesitate a moment. I declare she would grace a coronet; no wonder all the young men round are in love with her. And yet, meet her when I will, I can scarcely get more than 'yes,' and 'no,' out of her.

'It is utterly impossible she can be what she seems, or is supposed to be. I never saw more thoroughly aristocratic beauty in our most aristocratic circles. Miss Nugent is as handsome as a woman can well be, in form and feature; but her eyes are like two frozen pools, whereas this Gladys, are literally two deep blue lakes with stars s.h.i.+ning into them, or out of them, or something or other that a poet would describe better than I do. Well, what a fool I am! "A dream of fair women," in my fortieth year, just as I dreamt of them in my sixteenth. The Fates must decide for me, only I wish they would clear up the mystery that hangs over that girl, and give her Miss Nugent's thirty thousand pounds.'

Such were the thoughts that rushed through Colonel Vaughan's mind, as he sat, apparently looking at Freda's drawing in the place that she had vacated. We have unveiled a portion of his mind, because he is too good a tactician to unveil it himself. It is needless to say that this fascinating man, who has that nameless power which some men possess of making all women love him, has himself no heart to bestow on any one.