A Terrible Secret, May Agnes Fleming [best book clubs .TXT] 📗

something I would like to say to you--something I have wished to speak of, since we came on board."

Edith's heart gave one great jump--into her mouth it seemed. What could such a preface as this portend, save one thing? The baronet spoke again, and Miss Darrell's heart sunk down to the very soles of her buttoned boots.

"It is concerning those old papers, the _Chesholm Courier_. You understand, and--and the lamentable tragedy they chronicle."

"Yes?" said Miss Darrell, shutting her lips tight.

"It is naturally a deeply painful subject to me. Twenty-three years have passed; I was but an infant at the time, yet if it had, occurred only a year ago, I think I could hardly feel it more keenly than I do--hardly suffer more, when I speak of it."

"Then _why_ speak of it?" was the young lady's very sensible question. "_I_ have no claim to hear it, I am sure."

"No," the young man responded, and even in the moonlight she could see his color rise, "perhaps not, and yet I wanted to speak to you of it ever since. I don't know why, it is something I can scarcely bear to think of even, and yet I feel a sort of relief in speaking of it to you. Perhaps there is 'rapport' between us--that we are affinities--who knows?"

Who indeed! Miss Darrell's heart came up from her boots, to its proper place, and stayed there.

"It was such a terrible thing," the young man went on, "such a mysterious thing. To this day it is wrapped in darkness. She was so young, so fair, so good--it seems too horrible for belief, that any human being could lift his hand against so innocent a life. And yet it was done."

"A most terrible thing," Edith said; "but one has only to read the papers, to learn such deeds of horror are done every day. Life is a terribly sensational story. You say it is shrouded in darkness, but the _Chesholm Courier_ did not seem at all in the dark."

"You mean Inez Catheron. She was innocent."

"Indeed!"

"She was not guilty, except in this--she knew who _was_ guilty, and concealed it. Of that, I have reason to be sure."

"Her brother, of course--the Juan Catheron of the papers?"

"Who is to tell? Even that is not certain. No," in answer to her look of surprise, "it is not certain. I am sure my aunt believes in his innocence."

"Then who--"

"Ah--_who_?" the baronet said mournfully, "who was the murderer? It may be that we will never know."

"You will know," Edith said decidedly. "I am sure of it. I am a firm believer in the truism that 'murder will out.' Sooner or later you will know."

She spoke with the calm conviction of prophecy. She looked back to shudder at her own words in the after-days.

"Three-and-twenty years is a tolerable time to forget even the bitterest sorrow, but the thought of that tragedy is as bitter to my aunt to-day, as it was when it was done. She cannot bear to speak of it--I believe she cannot bear to think of it. What I know, therefore, concerning it, I have learned from others. Until I was eighteen, I knew absolutely nothing. Of my mother, of course I have no remembrance, and yet"--his eyes and tone grew dreamy--"as far back as I can recall, there is in my mind the memory of a woman, young and handsome, bending above my bed, kissing and crying over me. My mother was fair, the face I recall is dark. You will think me sentimental--you will laugh at me, perhaps," he said, smiling nervously; "you will set me down as a dreamer of dreams, and yet it is there."

Her dark, earnest eyes looked up at him, full of womanly sympathy.

"Laugh at you! Think better of me, Sir Victor. In these days it is rare enough to see men with either memory or veneration for their mother--whether dead or alive."

He looked at her; words seemed struggling to his lips. Once he half spoke. Then he checked himself suddenly. When he did speak it was with a total change of tone.

"And I am keeping you selfishly here in the cold. Take my arm, Miss Darrell; you must not stop another instant."

She obeyed at once. He led her to her cabin-door--hesitated--took her hand and held it while he spoke:

"I don't know why, as I said before, I have talked of this; I could not have done it with any one else. Let me thank you for your sympathy with all my heart."

Then he was gone; and, very grave and thoughtful, Edith sought Trixy and the upper berth. Miss Stuart lay calmly sleeping the sleep of the just and the sea-sick, blissfully unconscious of the traitorous goings on about her. Edith looked at her with a sort of twinge. Was it fair, after all? was it strictly honorable? "Poor Trix," she said, kissing her softly, "I don't think it will be _you_!"

Next morning, at breakfast, Miss Darrell noticed that Mr. Stuart, junior, watched her as he sipped his coffee, with a portentous countenance that foreboded something. What it foreboded came out presently. He led her on deck--offered her his arm for a morning constitutional, and opened fire thus wise:

"What were you and the baronet about on deck at abnormal hours of the night? What was the matter with you both?"

"Now, now!" cried Edith, "how do you come to know anything about it? What business have small boys like you, spying on the actions of their elders, when they should be safely tucked up, and asleep in their little beds?"

"I wasn't spying; I was asleep. I have no restless conscience to keep me prowling about at unholy hours."

"How do you come to know, then?"

"A little bird told me."

"I'll twist your little bird's neck! Who was it, sir? I command you."

"How she queens it already! Don't excite yourself, you small Amazon. It was the officer of the deck."

"The officer of the deck might be much better employed; and you may tell him so, with my compliments."

"I will; but you don't deny it--you were there!"

"I never deny my actions," she says with royal disdain; "yes, I was there."

"With Sir Victor--alone?"

"With Sir Victor--alone!"

"What did you talk about, Miss Darrell?"

"More than I care to repeat for your edification, Mr. Stuart. Have you any more questions to ask, pray?"

"One or two; did he ask you to marry him, Edith?"

"Ah, no!" Edith answers with a sigh that is genuine; "there is no such luck as _that_ in store for Dithy Darrell. A baronet's bride--Lady Catheron! no, no--the cakes and ale of life are not for me."

"Would you marry him, if he did? Will you marry him when he does? for that is what it comes to, after all."

"Would I marry him?" She looks at him in real incredulous wonder. "Would I marry Sir Victor Catheron--I? My dear Charley, when you ask rational questions, I shall be happy to answer them, to the best of my ability, but not such absurdity as that."

"Then, you _will_?"

"Charley, don't be a tease--what do young persons of your juvenile years know about such things? I don't like the turn this conversation has taken; let us change it, let us talk about the weather--that's always a safe subject. Isn't it a splendid morning? Isn't it charming to have a perpetual fair wind? And how are you going to account for it, that the wind is always fair going to England, and always ahead coming out?

"'England, my country--great and free
Heart of the world--I leap to thee!'"

She sings, with a wicked look in her dark eyes, as she watches her cavalier.

Charley is not going to be put off however; he declines to talk of either wind or weather.

"Answer my question, Edith, if you please. If Sir Victor Catheron asks you, will you be his wife?"

She looks at him calmly, steadily, the man she loves, and answers:

"If Sir Victor Catheron asks me, I will be his wife."


CHAPTER VII.

SHORT AND SENTIMENTAL.

Two days later, and Fastnet Rock looms up against the blue sky; the iron-bound Irish coast appears. At noon they will land in Queenstown.

"Come back to Erin, mavourneen, mavourneen," sings Charley's voice down the passage, early in the morning.

Charley can sing a little still. He is to lose Edith. Sir Victor Catheron is to win and wear; but as she is not Lady Catheron yet, Mr. Stuart postpones despair and suicide until she _is_.

She sprang from her bed with a cry of delight. Ireland! One, at least, of the lands of her dreams.

"Trixy!" she cries. "O Trixy, look out! 'The land of sweet Erin' at last!"

"I see it," Trixy said, rolling sleepily out of the under berth; "and I don't think much of it. A lot of wicked-looking rocks, and not a bit greener than at home. I thought the very sky was green over Ireland."

For the last two days Trixy's bitter trials had ended--her sea-sickness a dismal dream of the past. She was able, in ravishing toilet, to appear at the dinner-table, to pace the deck on the arm of Sir Victor. As one having the right, she calmly resumed her sway where she had left it off. Since that moonlight night of which she (Trixy) happily knew nothing, the bare civilities of life alone had passed between Miss Darrell and the baronet. Sir Victor might try, and did, but with, the serene superiority of right and power Miss Stuart countermanded every move. Hers she was determined he should be, and there was all the lost time to be made up besides. So she redoubled her attentions, aided and abetted by her pa--and how it came about the perplexed young Englishman never could tell, but somehow he was constantly at Miss Stuart's side and unable to get away. Edith saw it all and smiled to herself.

"To-day for me, to-morrow for thee," she hummed. "I have had my day; it is Trixy's turn now. She manoeuvres so well it would be a pity to interfere."

Charley was _her_ cavalier those pleasant last days; both were disposed to take the goods their gods provided, and not fret for to-morrow. It would not last--life's fairy gifts never do, for to-day they would eat, drink, and be merry together, and forget the evil to come.

They landed, spent an hour in Queenstown, then the train whirled them away "to that beautiful city called Cork." There they remained two days, visited Blarney Castle, of course, and would have kissed the Blarney Stone but for the trouble of climbing up to it. Then off, and away, to Killarney.

And still Sir Victor was Trixy's captive--still Edith and Charley maintained their alliance. Lady Helena watched her nephew and the American heiress, and her fine woman's instinct told her he was in no danger _there_.

"If it were the other one, now," she thought, glancing at Edith's dark, bright face; "but it is quite clear how matters stand between her and her cousin. What a handsome pair they will make."

Another of the elders--Mr. James Stuart--watched the progress of matters, through very different spectacles. It was the one dream of his life, to marry his son and daughter to British rank.

"Of wealth, sir,