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

of it at all," went on Sir Victor, looking embarrassed and rather at a loss for words, "until we reached England. I don't wish to be premature. I--I dread a refusal so unspeakably, that I almost fear to speak at all."

What was Miss Stuart to say to this? What could any well-trained young lady say?

"Good gracious me!" (this is what she thought,) "why don't he speak out, and not go beating about the bush in this ridiculous manner! What's he afraid of? Refusal, indeed! Stuff and nonsense!"

"It is only of late," pursued Sir Victor Catheron, "that I have quite realized my own feelings, and then when I saw the attention paid by another, and received with evident pleasure, it was my jealousy first taught me that I loved."

"He means Captain Hammond," thought Trixy; "he's jealous of him, as sure as a gun. How lucky we met him at Macroom."

"And yet," again resumed the baronet, with a faint smile, "I don't quite despair. I am sure, Miss Stuart, I have no real cause."

"No-o-o, I think not," faltered Miss Stuart.

"And when I address myself to your father and mother--as I shall very soon--you think, Miss Stuart, _they_ will also favor my suit?"

"_They_ favor his suit?" thought Trix, "good Heaven above! was ever earthly modesty like this young man's?" But aloud, still in the trembling tones befitting the occasion, "I--think so--I _know_ so, Sir Victor. It will be only too much honor, I'm sure."

"And--oh, Miss Stuart--Beatrix--if you will allow me to call you so--you think that when I speak--when I ask--I will be accepted?"

"He's a fool!" thought Beatrix, with an inward burst. "A bashful, ridiculous fool! Why, in the name of all that's namby-pamby, doesn't he pop the question, like a man, and have done with it? Bashfulness is all very well--nobody likes a little of it better than I do; but there is no use running it into the ground."

"You are silent," pursued Sir Victor. "Miss Stuart, it is not possible that I am too late, that there is a previous engagement?"

Miss Stuart straightened herself up, lifted her head, and smiled. She smiled in a way that would have driven a lover straight out of his senses.

"Call me Beatrix, Sir Victor; I like it best from my friends--from--from _you_. No, there is no previous engagement, and" (archly, this) "I am quite sure Sir Victor Catheron need never fear a refusal."

"Thanks." And precisely as another young gentleman was doing in the shadow of the "Torc," Sir Victor did in the shadow of the "Eagle's Nest." He lifted his fair companion's hand to his lips, and kissed it.

After that of course there was silence. Trixy's heart was full of joy--pure, unadulterated joy, to bursting. Oh, to be out of this, and able to tell pa and ma, and Charley, and Edith, and everybody! Lady Catheron! "Beatrix--Lady Catheron!" No--I can't describe Trixy's feelings. There are some joys too intense and too sacred for the Queen's English. She shut her eyes and drifted along in that blessed little boat in a speechless, ecstatic trance.

An hour later, and, as the clocks of Killarney were striking ten, Sir Victor Catheron helped Miss Stuart out of the boat, and had led her up--still silently--to the hotel. At the entrance he paused, and said the only disagreeable thing he had uttered to-night. "One last favor, Beatrix," taking her hand and gazing at her tenderly, "I must ask. Let what has passed between us remain between us for a few days longer. I had rather you did not speak of it even to your parents. My aunt, who has been more than a mother to me, is ignorant still of my feelings--it is her right that I inform her first. Only a few days more, and then all the world may know."

"Very well, Sir Victor," Beatrix answered demurely; "as you please, of course. I shan't speak to pa or ma. Goodnight, Sir Victor, good night!"

May I tell it, Miss Stuart actually gave the baronet's hand a little squeeze? But were they not engaged lovers, or as good? and isn't it permitted engaged lovers to squeeze each other's right hands? So they parted. Sir Victor strolled away to smoke a cigar in the moonlight, and Miss Stuart, with a beatified face, swept upstairs, her high-heeled New York gaiters click-clicking over the ground. Lady Catheron, Lady Catheron! Oh, what would all Fifth Avenue say to this?

Sleep was out of the question--it was open to debate whether she would _ever_ sleep again. She would go and see Edith. Yes, Edith and Charley had got home before her--she would go and see Edith.

She opened the door and went in with a swish of silk and patchouli. The candles were unlit. Miss Darrell, still wearing her hat and scarlet wrap, sat at the window contemplating the heavenly bodies.

"All in the dark, Dithy, and thinking by the 'sweet silver light of the moon?' O Edie! isn't it just the heavenliest night?"

"Is that what you came in to say, Miss Stuart?"

"Don't be impatient, there's a dear! I wanted to tell you how happy I am, and what a delicious--de-li-ci-ous," said Trix, dragging out the sweet syllables, "sail I've had. O Edie! _how_ I've enjoyed myself! Did you?"

"Immensely!" Edith answered, with brief bitterness, and something in her tone made Trixy look at her more closely.

"Why, Edith, I do believe you've been crying!"

"Crying! Bosh! I never cry. I'm stupid--I'm sleepy--my head aches. Excuse me, Trix, but I'm going to bed."

"Wait just one moment. O Edith," with a great burst, "I _can't_ keep it! I'll die if I don't tell somebody. O Edith, Edith! wish me joy, Sir Victor has proposed!"

"Trix!"

She could just say that one word--then she sat dumb.

"O yes, Edith--out in the boat to-night. O Edith! I'm so happy--I want to jump--I want to dance--I feel wild with delight! Just think of it--_think_ of it! Trixy Stuart will be My Lady Catheron!"

She turned of a dead white from brow to chin. She sat speechless with the shock--looking at Trixy--unable to speak or move.

"He's most awfully and aggravatingly modest," pursued Beatrix. "Couldn't say plump, like a man and brother, 'Trixy Stuart, will you marry me?' but beat about the bush, and talked of being refused, and fearing a rival, and speaking to ma and pa and Lady Helena when we got to England. But perhaps that's the way the British aristocracy make love. He asked me if there was any previous engagement, and any fear of a refusal, and that rubbish. I don't see," exclaimed Trixy, growing suddenly aggrieved, "_why_ he couldn't speak out like a hero, and be done with it? He's had encouragement enough, goodness knows!"

Something ludicrous in the last words struck Edith--she burst out laughing. But somehow the laugh sounded unnatural, and her lips felt stiff and strange.

"You're as hoarse as a raven and as pale as a ghost," said Trix. "That's what comes of sitting in draughts, and looking at the moonshine. I'm awfully happy, Edith; and when I'm Lady Catheron, you shall come and live with me always--always, you dear old darling, just like a sister. And some day you'll be my sister in reality, and Charley's wife."

She flung her arms around Edith's neck, and gave her a rapturous hug. Edith Darrell unclasped her arms and pushed her away.

"I'm tired, Trix; I'm cold." She shivered from head to foot. "I want to go to bed."

"But won't you say something, Dithy? Won't you wish me joy?"

"I--wish--you joy."

Her lips kept that strange feeling of stiffness--her face had lost every trace of color. Oh, to be alone and free from Trix!

"You say it as if you didn't mean it," said Trix indignantly, getting up and moving to the door. "You look half-frozen, and as white as a sheet. I should advise you to shut the window and go to bed."

She was gone. Edith drew a long breath--a long, tired, heavy sigh. So! that was over--and it was Trix, after all.

Trix, after all! How strangely it sounded--it stunned her. Trix, after all and she had made sure it was to be herself. He had looked at her, he had spoken to her, as he had never looked or spoken to Trix. His color had risen like a girl's at her coming--she had felt his heart bound as she leaned on his arm. And it was Trix, after all!

She laid her arm upon the window-sill, and her face down upon it, feeling sick--sick--that I should have to write it!--with anger and envy. She was Edith Darrell, the poor relation, still--and Trix was to be Lady Catheron.

"A pretty heroine!" cries some, "gentle reader," looking angrily up; "a nasty, envious, selfish creature. Not the sort, of a heroine _we're_ used to." Ah! I know that--none better; but then pure and perfect beings, who are ready to resign their lovers and husbands to make other women happy, are to be found in--books, and nowhere else. And thinking it over and putting yourself in her place--honestly, now!--wouldn't you have been envious yourself?


CHAPTER IX.

ALAS FOR TRIX!

"And after to-night we will all have a rest, thank Heaven! and _my_ pilgrimage will come to an end. A fortnight at Powyss Place before you go up to London, my dear Mrs. Stuart--not a day less."

Thus Lady Helena Powyss, eight days later, seated luxuriously in the first-class carriage, and flying along by express train between Dublin and Kingston, _en route_ for Cheshire.

They had "done" the south of Ireland, finished the Lakes, spent a pleasant half-week in Dublin, and now, in the light of the May afternoon, were flying along to meet the channel boat.

Captain Hammond was of the party still, and included in the invitation to Powyss Place. He sat between Lady Helena and Sir Victor now--Miss Stuart, in charming travelling costume, in the sunny seat next the window. On the opposite seat, at the other extreme end, sat Edith Darrell, her eyes riveted upon the pages of a book.

Since that night in the boat Miss Stuart had quietly but resolutely taken entire possession of Sir Victor. He was hers--she had the right. If a gentleman is modest to a fault, mayn't a lady overstep, by an inch or two, the line that Mrs. Grundy draws, and meet him half way? There is an adage about helping a lame dog over a stile--that work of mercy is what Trixy was doing now.

Before she left her room on the ensuing morning following that never-to-be-forgotten night, Edith had entered and taken Trix in her arms and kissed her.

"I was stupid and out of sorts last night, Trixy," she had said. "If I seemed churlish, I ask your pardon, dear, with all my heart I was surprised--I don't mind owning _that_--and perhaps a little, just a little, envious. But all that is over now, and I _do_ wish you joy and happiness from the bottom of my heart. You're the best and dearest girl in the world, and deserve your fairy fortune."

And she had meant it. Trix _was_ one of the best and dearest girls in the world, and if Sir Victor preferred her to herself, what right had she to grudge her her luck. Against the baronet himself, she felt anger deep and strong still. How dared he seek her out as he had done, select her for his confidante, and look love in fifty different ways, when he meant