Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  And now, Brinsley was going, and it was over. He would never come back, and she should never see him again — she was sure of that, she was only an old maid; a middle-aged gentlewoman who had never possessed any great attraction for anybody; who had always been more or less poor and unhappy, though of the best and living amongst the best; whose few pleasures had come to her unexpectedly, like rare gleams of pale sunshine on a very long rainy day; who had looked for little and had got next to nothing out of life, save the crumbs of enjoyment from the feast of rich relations, like the Trehearnes — a woman who had known something more grievous than sorrow and worse than violent grief, trudging through life in the leaden cowl of many limitations — the leaden cowl of that most innocent of all hypocrites, of her, or of him, who knows the daily burden of keeping up appearances on next to nothing, and of doctoring poor little illusions through a feeble existence, worth having because they represent all that there is to have.

  She had been wounded by one of those arrows shot in the dark which hit hearts unawares and unaimed; and now that the shaft was suddenly drawn out, the heart’s blood followed it and the nerves quivered where it had been. It was only one of the little tragedies which no one sees, few guess at, and nothing can hinder. But Fanny Trehearne felt that it was beside her, there in the little boat, while she watched the pretty fireworks, and she was sorry and did what she could to soothe the pain.

  “Let’s change, now,” she said at last, just as the glow of a multitude of coloured fires died away on the water. “You take Mr. Brinsley, and I’ll take Mr. Lawrence.”

  As she spoke, she gave her cousin’s hand a little squeeze of sympathy, and heard the small sigh of satisfaction that answered the proposal. The rearrangement was effected in a few moments, the men holding the boats together by the gunwales while the ladies stepped from one into the other.

  “Pull away,” said Fanny, authoritatively, as soon as Lawrence had shoved off. “Let’s get out of this! I’ll steer, so you needn’t bother about running into things.”

  Fairly seated in a boat, with the sculls shipped, and some one at the tiller lines, Lawrence could get along tolerably well, for he knew just enough not to catch a crab in smooth water, so long as he was not obliged to turn his head. But if he had to look over his shoulder, something was certain to happen, which was natural, considering that when he attempted to feather at all, he did it the wrong way.

  “You’ re stronger than anybody would think,” observed Fanny, as she saw how quickly the skiff moved. “You might do things quite decently, if you’d only take the trouble to learn.”

  “Oh no! I’m a born duffer,” laughed Lawrence. “Besides, I couldn’t row long like this. I couldn’t keep it up.”

  They were just in front of the club-house now; and a score of rockets went up together, with a rushing and a crackling and a gleaming, as they soared and burst, and at last fell sputtering in the water all around the skiff. Lawrence had rested on his sculls to watch the sight.

  “Pull away! “said Fanny. “We’ll get under the foot-bridge by the landing. There’s water enough there, and we can see everything.”

  Lawrence obeyed, and pulled as hard as he could.

  “So your friend Mr. Brinsley is going away,” observed the young girl, suddenly.

  “My friend! I like that! As though I had brought him in my pocket.”

  “I’m very glad that he’s going, at all events,” said Fanny, without heeding his remark. “I’m not fond of him any more.”

  “I hope you never were — fond of him.”

  “Oh yes, I was — but I’m thankful to say that it’s over. Of all the ineffable cads! I could have killed him to-day!”

  “By the bye,” said Lawrence, “when he was mounting you — didn’t you do that on purpose?”

  “Of course. And then I called him awkward. It was so nice! It did me good.”

  “Pure spite, I suppose. You couldn’t have had any particular reason for doing it, could you?”

  “Oh dear, no! What reason could I have? It wasn’t his fault that the mare ran away, though I told him it was.”

  “That’s interesting,” observed Lawrence. “Do you often do things out of pure spite?”

  “Constantly — without any reason at all!” Fanny laughed.

  “Perhaps you’ll marry out of spite, some day,” said Lawrence, calmly. “Women often do, they say, though I never could understand why.”

  “I daresay I shall. I’m quite capable of it. And shouldn’t I be just horrid afterwards!”

  “I like you when you’re horrid, as you call it. I didn’t at first. You’ve given my sense of humour a chance to grow since I’ve been here. I say, Miss Trehearne—” He stopped.

  “What do you say? It isn’t particularly polite to begin in that way, is it? I suppose it’s English.”

  “Oh, bother the English! And I apologize for being slangy. It’s so dark that I can’t see you frown. I meant to say, if you ever marry out of spite, and want to be particularly horrid afterwards, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to marry me, for I don’t mind that sort of thing a bit, you know.”

  “That’s a singular offer!” laughed Fanny, leaning far back, and playing with the tiller lines in the glow of the Bengal lights.

  “It’s genuine of its kind,” answered the young man. “Of course it isn’t a sure thing, exactly,” he added reflectively, “because it depends on your happening to be in the spiteful humour. But, as you say that often happens—”

  “Well, go on!”

  “I thought you might feel spiteful enough to accept this evening,” concluded Lawrence.

  “Take care — I might, you know — you’re in danger!” She was still laughing.

  “Don’t mind me, you know! I could stand it, I believe.”

  “You’re awfully amusing — sometimes, Mr. Lawrence.”

  “Meaning now? enquired the artist, resting on his sculls, for they were under the shadow of the bridge.

  “I can’t see your face distinctly,” answered Fanny. “So much depends on the expression. But I think—”

  “What do you think? That it’s awfully amusing of me to offer to be married as a sacrifice, to your spite?”

  “It’s amusing anyway.”

  “A formal proposal would be, you mean?” asked Lawrence. Then he laughed oddly.

  “I hate formality,” answered Fanny. “That is, in earnest, you know. It’s so disgusting when a man comes with his gloves buttoned and sits on the edge of a chair and says—”

  “And say what?”

  “Oh — you know the sort of thing.You must have done it scores of times.”

  “What? Proposed and been refused? You’re complimentary, at all events. I’ve a great mind to let you be the first, just — well — how shall I say? Just to associate you with a novel sensation.”

  “I might disappoint you,” said Fanny, demurely. “I told you so before. Just think, if I were to say ‘yes,’ you’d be most dreadfully caught. You’d have to eat humble pie and beg off, and say that you hadn’t meant it.”

  “Oh no!” laughed the young man. “You’d break it off in a week, and then it would be all right.”

  “Are you going to be rude? Or are you, already? I’m not quite sure.”

  “Neither. Of course you’d break it off, if we had an agreement to that effect.”

  “You don’t make any allowance for my spitefulness. It would be just like me to hold you to your engagement. Of course you wouldn’t live long. We should be sure to fight.”

  “Oh — sure,” assented Lawrence. “That is, if you call this fighting.”

  “It would be worse than this. But why don’t you try? I’m dying to refuse you. I’m just in the humour.”

  “Why! I thought you said there was danger!

  Channel between Bar Island and Sheep Porcupine.

  If I’d known there wasn’t — by the bye, this counts in the game, doesn’t it?”

  “There isn’t anything to count, yet,” said Fanny. “Loo
k at those fiery fish — aren’t they pretty? See how they squirm about, and fizzle, and behave like mad things! Oh, I never saw anything so pretty as that!”

  “Yes. If one must have an interruption, they do as well as anything.”

  “You weren’t talking very coherently, I believe,” said the young girl, turning her head to watch the fireworks. “And you’ve made me miss lots of pretty things, I’m sure. Oh — they’ve gone out already! How dark it seems, all at once! What were you asking? Whether this counted in the game? Of course it counts. Everything does. But I don’t exactly see how—”

  She stopped and looked towards him in the dim gloom of the shadow under the bridge. But Lawrence did not speak. He looked over the side of the boat, softly slapping the black water with the blade of his scull.

  “Why don’t you go on?” asked Fanny, tapping the boards under her foot to attract his attention.

  “I was thinking over the proper words,” answered Lawrence. “How does one make a formal proposal of marriage? I never did such a thing in my life.”

  “An informal one would do for fun.”

  “I never did that, either.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “Really? Swear it, as they say on the stage.” Fanny laughed softly.

  “Oh, by Jove, yes!” answered Lawrence, promptly. “I’ll swear to that by anything you please.”

  “Well — you’ll have to do it some day, so you’d better practise at once,” suggested Fanny. Lawrence did not notice that there was a sort of little relief in her tone.

  “I suppose one says, ‘My angel, will you be mine?’” he said. “That sounds like some book or other.”

  “It might do,” answered Fanny, meditatively. “You ought to throw a little more expression into the tone. Besides, I’m not an angel, whatever the girl in the book may have been. On the whole — no — it’s a little too effusive. Angel — you know. It’s such nonsense! Try something else; but put lots of expression into it.”

  “Does one get down on one’s knees?” enquired Lawrence.

  “Oh no; I don’t believe it’s necessary. Besides, you’d upset the boat.”

  “All right — here goes! My dear Miss Trehearne, will you—”

  “Yes. That’s it. Go on. The quaver in the voice is rather well done. ‘Will you—’ What?”

  “Will you marry me?”

  “Yes, Mr. Lawrence, I will.”

  There was a short pause, during which a number of fiery fish were sent off again, and squirmed and wriggled and fizzled their burning little lives away in the water. But neither of the young people looked at them.

  “You rather took my breath away,” said Lawrence, with a change of tone. “Did I do it all right?”

  “Oh — quite right,” answered Fanny, thoughtfully.

  Immediately after the words Lawrence heard a little sigh. Then Fanny heard one, too.

  “You didn’t happen to be in earnest, did you?” she asked suddenly, in a low, soft voice.

  “Well — I didn’t mean — that I meant — you know we agreed to play a game—”

  “I know we did — but — were you in earnest?”

  “Yes — but, of course — Oh, this isn’t fair, Miss Trehearne!”

  “Yes, it is. I said ‘yes,’ didn’t I?”

  “Certainly, but—”

  “There’s no ‘but.’ I happened to be in earnest, too — that’s all. I’ve lost the game.”

  The Ralstons

  THE SEQUEL TO KATHARINE LAUDERDALE

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER I.

  CHAPTER II.

  CHAPTER III.

  CHAPTER IV.

  CHAPTER V.

  CHAPTER VI.

  CHAPTER VII.

  CHAPTER VIII.

  CHAPTER IX.

  CHAPTER X.

  CHAPTER XI.

  CHAPTER XII.

  CHAPTER XIII.

  CHAPTER XIV.

  CHAPTER XV.

  CHAPTER XVI.

  CHAPTER XVII.

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  CHAPTER XIX.

  CHAPTER XX.

  CHAPTER XXI.

  CHAPTER XXII.

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  CHAPTER XXIV.

  CHAPTER XXV.

  CHAPTER XXVI.

  CHAPTER XXVII.

  CHAPTER XXVIII.

  CHAPTER XXIX.

  CHAPTER XXX.

  CHAPTER XXXI.

  CHAPTER XXXII.

  CHAPTER XXXIII.

  CHAPTER XXXIV.

  CHAPTER XXXV.

  The first edition

  CHAPTER I.

  ALEXANDER LAUDERDALE JUNIOR was very much exercised in spirit concerning the welfare of his two daughters, of whom the elder was Charlotte and the younger was Katharine. Charlotte had been married, nearly two years before the opening of this tale, to Benjamin Slayback, the well-known member of Congress from Nevada, and lived in Washington. Katharine was still at home, living with her father and mother and grandfather, in the old house in Clinton Place, in the city of New York.

  Mr. Lauderdale, the son of the still living philanthropist, and the nephew of the latter’s younger brother, the great millionaire, Robert Lauderdale, sat in his carefully swept, garnished and polished office on a Saturday morning early in April. In outward appearance, as well as in inward sympathy, he was in perfect harmony with his surroundings. He resembled a magnificent piece of mechanism exhibited in a splendid show-case — a spare man, extremely well proportioned, with a severe cast of face, hard grey eyes, and a look all over him which recalled a well-kept locomotive. He sat facing the bright light which fell through the clear plate glass. One of his hands, cool, smooth, lean, lay perfectly still, spread out upon the broad sheet of a type-written letter on the table; the other, equally motionless, hung idly over his knee. They were grasping hands, with long, curved nails, naturally highly polished. It was not probable that the great Trust Company, in which Alexander Junior held such an important position, should ever lose the fraction of a fractional interest through any oversight of his.

  So far as his own fortune was concerned, he often said that he was poor. He lived in an old house which had been his grandfather’s and father’s in turn, but which, although his father was alive and continued to live in it, had become his own property some years previous to the beginning of this story. For Alexander Lauderdale Senior was a philanthropist; and although his brother, the rich Robert, gave liberally toward the support of the institutions in which he was interested, Alexander had little by little turned everything he possessed into money, applying it chiefly to the education of idiots. The consequence was that he depended, almost unconsciously, upon his only son for the actual necessities of life. The old house was situated on the north side of Clinton Place, which had never been a fashionable street, though it lay in what had once been a most fashionable neighbourhood. No one need be surprised if the near relatives of such a very rich man as Robert Lauderdale lived very quietly, so far as expenditure was concerned. He was a very generous man, and would have done much more for his nephew and the latter’s family if he had believed that they wished or expected it. But in his sensible view, they had all they needed, — a good house, a sufficient amount of luxury, and a very prominent position in society. He knew, moreover, that, however much he might give, the money would either find its way into the vast charities in which his brother was interested, or would disappear, as other sums and bits of property had disappeared before now, to some place — presumably one of safety — of which his nephew never spoke. For he suspected that Alexander Junior was not nearly so poor as he represented himself to be, and he was not exactly pleased with the fact that he himself was the only person before whom Alexander Junior bowed down and offered incense.

  For this younger Lauderdale was a very rigid man in almost all respects: in his religion, which took the Presbyterian form, and took it in earnest; in his uprightness, which was cruelly sincere; and in his outward manner, which was in th
e highest degree conventionally correct.

  It was this extreme correctness which lay at the root of his present troubles, since, in his opinion, both his daughters had departed from it in opposite directions and in an almost equal degree. He did not recognize himself in either of them, and, as he believed his own character to be an excellent model for his family, his vanity was wounded by nature’s perverseness. Furthermore, he distinctly disliked that sort of social prominence which is the portion of those who are not like the majority, or who do not think with the majority and say so. Both Mrs. Slayback and Miss Lauderdale attracted attention in that way.

  Mrs. Slayback was handsome and vain, and believed herself to be proud in the better sense of the word. She had married her husband for two reasons: because she found the paternal home intolerable, and because, besides being rich, Benjamin Slayback was thought to be a man who had a brilliant future before him in the world of politics. Charlotte had believed that she could rule him, and herself become a power. In this she had been disappointed at the outset, having been deceived by a certain almost childlike simplicity of exterior, which was in reality one of Slayback’s strongest weapons. He admired her very much; he looked up to her with admiration for her superior social acquirements, and he treated her with a sort of barbaric liberality to which she had not been accustomed. But within himself he followed his own political devices without consulting her, and with a smiling reticence which convinced her most unpleasantly that she was not intellectually a match for him. This was all the more painful as she considered him to be her social inferior, a point of view which was popular with some of her intimate friends in New York, but much less so in Washington, and not at all in Nevada.