A Little Rebel by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (freenovel24 txt) 📖

talk to Aunt Jane. She doesn't talk, she only argues, and always wrongly. But you are different. I can see that. Now tell me,"--she leans even more forward and looks intently at the professor, her pretty brows wrinkled as if with extreme and troublous thought--"What are the duties of a guardian?"

"Eh?" says the professor. He moves his glasses up to his forehead and then pulls them down again. Did ever anxious student ask him question so difficult of answer as this one--that this small maiden has propounded?

"You can think it over," says she most graciously. "There is no hurry, and I am quite aware that one isn't made a guardian _every_ day. Do you think you could make it out whilst I count forty?"

"I think I could make it out more quickly if you didn't count at all," says the professor, who is growing warm. "The duties of a guardian--are--er--to--er--to see that one's ward is comfortable and happy."

"Then there is a great deal of duty for _you_ to do," says she solemnly, letting her chin slip into the hollow of her hand.

"I know--I'm sure of it," says the professor with a sigh that might be called a groan. "But your aunt, Miss Majendie--your mother's sister--can----"

"I don't believe she is my mother's sister," says Miss Wynter calmly. "I have seen my mother's picture. It is lovely! Aunt Jane was a changeling--I'm sure of it. But never mind her. You were going to say----?"

"That Miss Majendie, who is virtually your guardian--can explain it all to you much better than I can."

"Aunt Jane is _not_ my guardian!" The mild look of enquiry changes to one of light anger. The white brown contracts. "And certainly she could never make one happy and comfortable. Well--what else?"

"She will look after----"

"I told you I don't care about Aunt Jane. Tell me what _you_ can do----"

"See that your fortune is not----"

"I don't care about my fortune either," with a little petulant gesture. "But I _do_ care about my happiness. Will you see to _that?_"

"Of course," says the professor gravely.

"Then you will take me away from Aunt Jane!" The small vivacious face is now all aglow. "I am not happy with Aunt Jane. I"--clasping her hands, and letting a quick, vindictive fire light her eyes--"I _hate_ Aunt Jane. She says things about poor papa that---- _Oh!_ how I hate her!"

"But--you shouldn't--you really should not. I feel certain you ought not," says the professor, growing vaguer every moment.

"Ought I not?" with a quick little laugh that is all anger and no mirth. "I _do_ though, for all that! I"--pausing, and regarding him with a somewhat tragic air that sits most funnily upon her--"am not going to stay here much longer!"

_"What!"_ says the professor aghast. "But my dear---- Miss Wynter, I'm afraid you _must."_

"Why? What is she to me?"

"Your aunt."

"That's nothing--nothing at all--even a _guardian_ is better than that. And you are my guardian. Why," coming closer to him and pressing five soft little fingers in an almost feverish fashion upon his arm, "why can't _you_ take me away?"

_"I?"_

"Yes, yes, you." She comes even nearer to him, and the pressure of the small fingers grows more eager--there is something in them that might well be termed coaxing. _"Do,"_ says she.

"Oh! Impossible!" says the professor. The color mounts to his brow. He almost _shakes_ off the little clinging fingers in his astonishment and agitation. Has she no common sense--no knowledge of the things that be?

She has drawn back from him and is regarding him somewhat strangely.

"Impossible to leave Aunt Jane?" questions she. It is evident she has not altogether understood, and yet is feeling puzzled. "Well," defiantly, "we shall see!"

_"Why_ don't you like your Aunt Jane?" asks the professor distractedly. He doesn't feel nearly as fond of his dead friend as he did an hour ago.

"Because," lucidly, "she _is_ Aunt Jane. If she were _your_ Aunt Jane you would know."

"But my dear----"

"I really wish," interrupts Miss Wynter petulantly, "you wouldn't call me 'my dear.' Aunt Jane calls me that when she is going to say something horrid to me. Papa----" she pauses suddenly, and tears rush to her dark eyes.

"Yes. What of your father?" asks the professor hurriedly, the tears raising terror in his soul.

"You knew him--speak to me of him," says she, a little tremulously.

"I knew him well indeed. He was very good to me when--when I was younger. I was very fond of him."

"He was good to everyone," says Miss Wynter, staring hard at the professor. It is occurring to her that this grave sedate man with his glasses could never have been younger. He must always have been older than the gay, handsome, _debonnaire_ father, who had been so dear to her.

"What were you going to tell me about him?" asks the professor gently.

"Only what he used to call me--_Doatie!_ I suppose," wistfully, "you couldn't call me that?"

"I am afraid not," says the professor, coloring even deeper.

"I'm sorry," says she, her young mouth taking a sorrowful curve. "But don't call me Miss Wynter, at all events, or 'my dear.' I do so want someone to call me by my Christian name," says the poor child sadly.

"Perpetua--is it not?" says the professor, ever so kindly.

"No--'Pet,'" corrects she. "It's shorter, you know, and far easier to say."

"Oh!" says the professor. To him it seems very difficult to say. Is it possible she is going to ask him to call her by that familiar--almost affectionate--name? The girl must be mad.

"Yes--much easier," says Perpetua; "you will find that out, after a bit, when you have got used to calling me by it. Are you going now, Mr. Curzon? Going _so soon?_"

"I have classes," says the professor.

"Students?" says she. "You teach them? I wish I was a student. I shouldn't have been given over to Aunt Jane then, or," with a rather wilful laugh, "if I had been I should have led her, oh!" rapturously, _"such a life!"_

It suggests itself to the professor that she is quite capable of doing that now, though she is _not_ of the sex male.

"Good-bye," says he, holding out his hand.

"You will come soon again?" demands she, laying her own in it.

"Next week--perhaps."

"Not till then? I shall be dead then," says she, with a rather mirthless laugh this time. "Do you know that you and Aunt Jane are the only two people in all London whom I know?"

"That is terrible," says he, quite sincerely.

"Yes. Isn't it?"

"But soon you will know people. Your aunt has acquaintances. They--surely they will call; they will see you--they----"

"Will take an overwhelming fancy to me? just as you have done," says she, with a quick, rather curious light in her eyes, and a tilting of her pretty chin. "There! _go,"_ says she, "I have some work to do; and you have your classes. It would never do for you to miss _them._ And as for next week!--make it next month! I wouldn't for the world be a trouble to you in any way."

"I shall come next week," says the professor, troubled in somewise by the meaning in her eyes. What is it? Simple loneliness, or misery downright? How young she looks--what a child! That tragic air does not belong to her of right. She should be all laughter, and lightness, and mirth----

"As you will," says she; her tone has grown almost haughty; there is a sense of remorse in his breast as he goes down the stairs. Has he been kind to old Wynter's child? Has he been true to his trust? There has been an expression that might almost be termed despair in the young face as he left her. Her face, with that expression on it, haunts him all down the road.

Yes. He will call next week. What day is this? Friday. And Friday next he is bound to deliver a lecture somewhere--he is not sure where, but certainly somewhere. Well, Saturday then he might call. But that----

Why not call Thursday--or even Wednesday?

Wednesday let it be. He needn't call every week, but he had said something about calling next week, and--she wouldn't care, of course--but one should keep their word. What a strange little face she has--and strange manners, and--not able to get on evidently with her present surroundings.

What an old devil that aunt must be!


CHAPTER IV.



"Dear, if you knew what tears they shed,
Who live apart from home and friend,
To pass my house, by pity led,
Your steps would tend."


He makes the acquaintance of the latter very shortly. But requires no spoon to sup with her, as Miss Majendie's invitations to supper, or indeed to luncheon, breakfast or dinner, are so few and rare that it might be rash for a hungry man to count on them.

The professor, who has felt it to be his duty to call on his ward regularly every week, has learned to know and (I regret to say) to loathe that estimable spinster christened Jane Majendie.

After every visit to her house he has sworn to himself that _"this one"_ shall be his last, and every Wednesday following he has gone again. Indeed, to-day being Wednesday in the heart of June, he may be seen sitting bolt upright in a hansom on his way to the unlovely house that holds Miss Majendie.

As he enters the dismal drawing-room, where he finds Miss Majendie and her niece, it becomes plain, even to his inexperienced brain, that there has just been a row on, somewhere.

Perpetua is sitting on a distant lounge, her small vivacious face one thunder-cloud. Miss Majendie, sitting on the hardest chair this hideous room contains, is smiling. A terrible sign. The professor pales before it.

"I am glad to see you, Mr. Curzon," says Miss Majendie, rising and extending a bony hand. "As Perpetua's guardian, you may perhaps have some influence over her. I say 'perhaps' advisedly, as I scarcely dare to hope _anyone_ could influence a mind so distorted as hers."

"What is it?" asks the professor nervously--of Perpetua, not of Miss Majendie.

"I'm dull," says Perpetua sullenly.

The professor glances keenly at the girl's downcast face, and then at Miss Majendie. The latter glance is a question.

"You hear her," says Miss Majendie coldly--she draws her shawl round her meagre shoulders, and a breath through her lean nostrils that may be heard. "Perhaps _you_ may be able to discover her meaning."

"What is it?" asks the professor, turning to the girl, his tone anxious, uncertain. Young women with "wrongs" are unknown to him, as are all other sorts of young women for the matter of that. And _this_ particular young woman looks a little unsafe at the present moment.

"I have told you! I am tired of this life. I am dull--stupid. I want to go out." Her lovely eyes are flashing, her face is white--her lips trembling. _"Take_ me out," says she suddenly.

"Perpetua!" exclaims Miss Majendie. "How unmaidenly! How immodest!"

Perpetua looks at her with large, surprised eyes.

"Why," says she.

"I really think," interrupts the professor hurriedly, who see breakers ahead, "if I were to take Perpetua for a walk--a drive--to--er--to some place or other--it might