A Little Rebel, Margaret Wolfe Hungerford [best novels to read for beginners txt] 📗

destroy this _ennui_ of which she complains. If you will allow her to come out with me for an hour or so, I----"

"If you are waiting for _my_ sanction, Mr. Curzon, to that extraordinary proposal, you will wait some time," says Miss Majendie slowly, frigidly. She draws the shawl still closer, and sniffs again.

"But----"

"There is no 'But,' sir. The subject doesn't admit of argument. In my young days, and I should think"--scrutinising him exhaustively through her glasses--_"in yours_, it was not customary for a young _gentlewoman _to go out walking, alone, with _'a man'!!"_ If she had said with a famished tiger, she couldn't have thrown more horror into her tone.

The professor had shrunk a little from that classing of her age with his, but has now found matter for hope in it.

"Still--my age--as you suggest--so far exceeds Perpetua's--I am indeed so much older than she is, that I might be allowed to escort her wherever it may please her to go."

"The _real_ age of a man nowadays, sir, is a thing impossible to know," says Miss Majendie. "You wear glasses--a capital disguise! I mean nothing offensive--_so far_--sir, but it behoves me to be careful, and behind those glasses, who can tell what demon lurks? Nay! No offence! An _innocent_ man would _feel_ no offence!"

"Really, Miss Majendie!" begins the poor professor, who is as red as though he were the guiltiest soul alive.

"Let me proceed, sir. We were talking of the ages of men."

_"We?"_

"Certainly! It was you who suggested the idea that, being so much older than my niece, Miss Wynter, you could therefore escort her here and there--in fact _everywhere_--in fact"--with awful meaning--_"any_ where!"

"I assure you, madam," begins the professor, springing to his feet--Perpetua puts out a white hand.

"Ah! let her talk," says she. _"Then_ you will understand."

"But men's ages, sir, are a snare and a delusion!" continues Miss Majendie, who has now mounted her hobby, and will ride it to the death. "Who can tell the age of any man in this degenerate age? We look at their faces, and say _he_ must be so and so, and _he_ a few years younger, but looks are vain, they tell us nothing. Some look old, because they _are_ old, some look old--through _vice!"_

The professor makes an impatient gesture. But Miss Majendie is equal to most things.

"'Who excuses himself _accuses_ himself,'" quotes she with terrible readiness. "Why that gesture, Mr. Curzon? I made no mention of _your_ name. And indeed, I trust your age would place you outside of any such suspicion, still, I am bound to be careful where my niece's interests are concerned. You, as her guardian if a _faithful_ guardian" (with open doubt as to this, expressed in eye and pointed finger), "should be the first to applaud my caution."

"You take an extreme view," begins the professor, a little feebly, perhaps. That eye and that pointed finger have cowed him.

"One's views _have_ to be extreme in these days if one would continue in the paths of virtue," said Miss Majendie. _"Your_ views," with a piercing and condemnatory glance, "are evidently _not_ extreme. One word for all, Mr. Curzon, and this argument is at an end. I shall not permit my niece, with my permission, to walk with you or any other man whilst under my protection."

"I daresay you are right--no doubt--no doubt" mumbles the professor, incoherently, now thoroughly frightened and demoralized. Good heavens! What an awful old woman! And to think that this poor child is under her care. He happens at this moment to look at the poor child, and the scorn _for him_ that gleams in her large eyes perfects his rout. To say that she was _right!_

"If Perpetua wishes to go for a walk," says Miss Majendie, breaking through a mist of angry feeling that is only half on the surface, "I am here to accompany her."

"I don't want to go for a walk--with you," says Perpetua, rudely it must be confessed, though her tone is low and studiously reserved. "I don't want to go for a walk _at all."_ She pauses, and her voice chokes a little, and then suddenly she breaks into a small passion of vehemence. "I want to go somewhere, to _see_ something," she cries, gazing imploringly at Curzon.

"To _see_ something!" says her aunt, "why it was only last Sunday I took you to Westminster Abbey, where you saw the grandest edifice in all the world."

"Most interesting place," says the professor, _sotto voce,_ with a wild but mad hope of smoothing matters down for Perpetua's sake.

If it _was_ for Perpetua's sake, she proves herself singularly ungrateful. She turns upon him a small vivid face, alight with indignation.

"You support her," cries she. _"You!_ Well, I shall tell you! I"--defiantly--"I don't want to go to churches at all. I want to go to _theatres!_ There!"

There is an awful silence. Miss Marjorie's face is a picture! If the girl had said she wanted to go to the devil instead of to the theatre, she could hardly have looked more horrified. She takes a step forward, closer to Perpetua.

"Go to your room! And pray--_pray_ for a purer mind!" says she. "This is hereditary, all this! Only prayer can cast it out. And remember, this is the last word upon this subject. As long as you are under _my_ roof you shall never go to a sinful place of amusement. I forbid you ever to speak of theatres again."

"I shall not be forbidden!" says Perpetua. She confronts her aunt with flaming eyes and crimson cheeks. "I _do_ want to go to the theatre, and to balls, and dances, and _everything_. I"--passionately, and with a most cruel, despairing longing in her young voice, "want to dance, to laugh, to sing, to amuse myself--to be the gayest thing in all the world!"

She stops as if exhausted, surprised perhaps at her own daring, and there is silence for a moment, a _little_ moment, and then Miss Majendie looks at her.

"'The gayest thing in all the world!' _and your father only four months dead!"_ says she, slowly, remorselessly.

All in a moment, as it were, the little crimson angry face grows white--white as death itself. The professor, shocked beyond words, stands staring, and marking the sad changes in it. Perpetua is trembling from head to foot. A frightened look has come into her beautiful eyes--her breath comes quickly. She is as a thing at bay--hopeless, horrified. Her lips part as if she would say something. But no words come. She casts one anguished glance at the professor, and rushes from the room.

It was but a momentary glimpse into a heart, but it was terrible. The professor turns upon Miss Majendie in great wrath.

"That was cruel--uncalled for!" says he, a strange feeling in his heart that he has not time to stop and analyse _then_. "How could you hurt her so? Poor child! Poor girl! She _loved_ him!"

"Then let her show respect to his memory," says Miss Majendie vindictively. She is unmoved--undaunted.

"She was not wanting in respect." His tone is hurried. This woman with the remorseless eye is too much for the gentle professor. "All she _does_ want is change, amusement. She is young. Youth must enjoy."

"In moderation--and in proper ways," says Miss Majendie stonily. "In moderation," she repeats mechanically, almost unconsciously. And then suddenly her wrath gets the better of her, and she breaks out in a violent rage. That one should dare to question _her_ actions! "Who are _you?"_ demands she fiercely, "that you should presume to dictate right and wrong to _me."_

"I am Miss Wynter's guardian," says the professor, who begins to see visions--and all the lower regions let loose at once. Could an original Fury look more horrible than this old woman, with her grey nodding head, and blind vindictive passion. He hears his voice faltering, and knows that he is edging towards the door. After all, what can the bravest man do with an angry old woman, except to get away from her as quickly as possible? And the professor, through brave enough in the usual ways, is not brave where women are concerned.

"Guardian or no guardian, I will thank you to remember you are in _my_ house!" cries Miss Majendie, in a shrill tone that runs through the professor's head.

"Certainly. Certainly," says he, confusedly, and then he slips out of the room, and having felt the door close behind him, runs tumultuously down the staircase. For years he has not gone down any staircase so swiftly. A vague, if unacknowledged, feeling that he is literally making his escape from a vital danger, is lending wings to his feet. Before him lies the hall-door, and that way safety lies, safety from that old gaunt, irate figure upstairs. He is not allowed to reach it, however--just yet.

A door on the right side of the hall is opened cautiously; a shapely little head is as cautiously pushed through it, and two anxious red lips whisper:--

"Mr. Curzon," first, and then, as he turns in answer to the whisper, "Sh--_Sh!"_


CHAPTER V.



"My love is like the sea,
As changeful and as free;
Sometimes she's angry, sometimes rough,
Yet oft she's smooth and calm enough--
Ay, much too calm for me."



It is Perpetua. A sad-eyed, a tearful-eyed Perpetua, but a lovely Perpetua for all that.

"Well?" says he.

_"Sh!"_ says she again, shaking her head ominously, and putting her forefinger against her lip. "Come in here," says she softly, under her breath.

"Here," when he does come in, is a most untidy place, made up of all things heterogeneous. Now that he is nearer to her, he can see that she has been crying vehemently, and that the tears still stand thick within her eyes.

"I felt I _must_ see you," says she, "to tell you--to ask you. To--Oh! you _heard_ what she said! Do--do _you_ think----?"

"Not at all, not at all," declares the professor hurriedly. "Don't--_don't_ cry, Perpetua! Look here," laying his hand nervously upon her shoulder and giving her a little angry shake. _"Don't_ cry! Good heavens! Why should you mind that awful old woman?"

Nevertheless, he had minded that awful old woman himself very considerably.

"But--it _is_ soon, isn't it?" says she. "I know that myself, and yet--" wistfully--"I can't help it. I _do_ want to see things, and to amuse myself."

"Naturally," says the professor.

"And it isn't that I _forget_ him," says she in an eager, intense tone, "I _never_ forget him--never--never. Only I do want to laugh sometimes and to be happy, and to see Mr. Irving as Charles I."

The climax is irresistible. The professor is unable to suppress a smile.

"I'm afraid, from what I have heard, _that_ won't make you laugh," says he.

"It will make me cry then. It is all the same," declares she, impartially. "I shall be enjoying myself, I shall be _seeing_ things. You--" doubtfully, and mindful of his last speech--"Haven't you seen him?"

"Not for a long time, I regret to say. I--I'm always so busy," says the professor apologetically.

_"Always_ studying?" questions she.

"For the most part," returns the professor, an odd sensation growing within him that he is feeling ashamed of himself.

"'All work and no play,'" begins Perpetua, and stops, and shakes her charming head at him. _"You_ will be a dull boy