A Terrible Secret by May Agnes Fleming (world of reading txt) 📖

they have enough," said the Wall Street banker, pulling up his collar pompously. "I will leave my children a cool million apiece. Their descent is equal to the best--to the best, sir--the royal rank of Scotland is in their veins. Fortune I don't look for--blood, sir--BLOOD, I do."

Over his daughter's progress after blood, he smiled complacently. Over his son's conduct he frowned.

"Mind what _you're_ at, young man," he said, on the day they left Cork, gruffly to Charley. "I have my eye on you. Ordinary attention to Fred Darrell's daughter I don't mind, but no fooling. You understand me, sir? No fooling. By George, sir, if you don't marry to please me, I'll cut you off with a shilling!"

Mr. Stuart, junior, looked tranquilly up at Mr. Stuart, senior, with an expression of countenance the senior by no means understood.

"Don't lose your temper, governor," he answered calmly. "I won't marry Fred Darrell's daughter, if that's what you mean by 'fooling.' She and I settled _that_ question two or three centuries ago."

At the village of Macroom, they quitted the comfortable railway carriage, and mounted the conveyance known in Ireland, as a public car, a thing like an overgrown jaunting-car, on which ten people can ride, sitting back to back, isolated by the pile of luggage between. There was but one tourist for the Lakes besides themselves, a large, military-looking young man, with muttonchop whiskers and an eye-glass, a knapsack and knickerbockers.

"Hammond, by Jove!" exclaimed Sir Victor. "Hammond, of the Scotch Grays. My dear fellow, delighted to see you. Captain Hammond, my friend, Mr. Stuart, of New York."

Captain Hammond put up his eye-glass and bowed. Charley lifted his hat, to this large military swell.

"I say, Sir Victor," the Captain of Scotch Grays began, "who'd have thought of seeing you here, you know? They said--aw--you had gone exploring Canada, or the United States, or some of those kind of places, you know. Who's your party?" _sotto voce_; "Americans--hey?"

"American friends, and my aunt, Lady Helena Powyss."

"Now, thin--look alive yer honors," cried the car-driver, and a scramble into seats instantly began. In his own mind, Sir Victor had determined his seat should be by Miss Darrell's side. But what is man's determination beside woman's resolve?

"Oh, p-please, Sir Victor," cries Miss Stuart, in a piteous little voice, "_do_ help me up. It's so dreadfully high, and I _know_ I shall fall off. And oh, please, do sit here, and point out the places as we go along--one enjoys places, so much more, when some one points them out, and you've been along here before."

What could Sir Victor do? More particularly as Lady Helena good-humoredly chimed in:

"Yes, Victor, come and point out the places. You shall sit bodkin, between Miss Beatrix and me. Your friend in the Tweed suit, can sit next, and you, my dear Mrs. Stuart--where will _you_ sit?"

"As Charley and Edith will have all the other side to themselves," said meek Mrs. Stuart, "I guess I'll sit beside Edith."

"Ay, ay," chimed in her spouse, "and I'll mount with cabby. All serene, there, behind? Then away we go!"

Away they went, clattering over the road, with the whole tatterdemalion population of Macroom after, shouting for "ha' pennies."

"Rags enough to set up a paper-mill," suggested Charley, "and all the noses turn-ups! Edith, how do you like this arrangement?"

"I think Trixy's cleverer than I ever gave her credit for," laughed Edith; "it's a pity so much diplomacy should be 'love's labor lost.'"

"Poor Trixy! She means well too. Honor thy father, that thy days may be long in the land. She's only trying to fulfil the command. And you think she has no chance?"

"I know it," Edith answers, with the calm serenity of conviction.

"Sir Victor, who's your friend with the solemn face and the funny knickerbockers?" whispers Trixy, under her white parasol.

"He's the Honorable Angus Hammond, second son of Lord Glengary, and captain of Scotch Grays," replies Sir Victor, and Miss Stuart opens her eyes, and looks with new-born reverence, at the big, speechless young warrior, who sits sucking the head of his umbrella, and who is an honorable and the son of a lord.

The day was delightful, the scenery exquisite, his companion vivacious in the extreme, Lady Helena in her most genial mood. But Sir Victor Catheron sat very silent and _distrait_ all the way. Rallied by Miss Stuart on his gloom, he smiled faintly, and acknowledged he felt a trifle out of sorts. As he made the confession he paused abruptly--clear and sweet, rang out the girlish laugh of Edith Darrell.

"Our friends on the other side appear to be in excellent spirits at least," says Lady Helena, smiling in sympathy with that merry peal; "what a very charming girl Miss Darrell is."

Trixy shoots one swift, sidelong glance at the baronet's face, and answers demurely:

"Oh, it's an understood thing that Dithy and Charley are never really happy, except when together. I don't believe Charley would have taken the trouble to come at all, if Edith, at his solicitation, had not been one of the party."

"A very old affair I suppose?" asks her ladyship, still smiling.

"A very old affair, indeed," Trix answers gayly. "Edith will make a charming sister-in-law; don't you think so, Sir Victor?"

She looks up at him artlessly as she plunges her small dagger into a vital place. He tries to smile, and say something agreeable in return--the smile is a failure; the words a greater failure. After that, all Trixy's attention falls harmless. He sits moodily listening to the gay voices on the other side of the luggage, and finds out for sure and certain that he is dead in love with Miss Darrell.

They reach Glengariff as the twilight shadows fall--lovely Glengariff, where they are to dine and pass the night. At dinner, by some lucky chance, Edith is beside him, and Captain Hammond falls into the clutches of Trix. And Miss Darrell turns her graceful shoulder deliberately upon Charley, and bestows her smiles, and glances, and absolute attention upon his rival.

After dinner they go for a sail by moonlight to an island, where there are the remains of a martello tower. The elders, for whom "moonlight on the lake," long ago lost its witchery, and falling dews and night airs retain their terrors, stay at home and rest. Edith and Sir Victor, Trix and the Honorable Angus Hammond, saunter down arm in arm to the boat. Charley and the two Irish boatmen bring up the rear--Mr. Stuart smoking a consolatory cigar.

They all "pile in" together, and fill the little boat. The baronet follows up his luck, and keeps close to Edith. How beautiful she is with the soft silver light on her face. He sits and watches her, and thinks of the laureate's lines:

"A man had given all other bliss
And all his worldly worth for this,
To wast his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips."

"_Am_ I too late?" he thought; "does she love her cousin? Is it as his sister hints; or--"

His jealous, anxious eyes never left her. She saw it all. If she had ever doubted her power over him, she did not doubt to-night. She smiled, and never once looked toward Charley.

"No," he thought, with a sigh of relief; "she does not care for him in that way--let Miss Stuart think as she pleases. She likes him in a sisterly way--nothing more. I will wait until we reach England, and speak then. She, and she alone, shall be my wife."


CHAPTER VIII.

IN TWO BOATS.

Early next morning our tourists remounted the car and jogged slowly over that lovely stretch of country which lies between Glengariff and Killarney.

Their places were as on the day before--Sir Victor in the possession of Trix, Charley with Edith. But the baronet's gloom was gone--hope filled his heart. She did _not_ love her cousin,--of that he had convinced himself,--and one day he might call her wife.

Sir Victor Catheron was that _rara avis_, a modest young man. That this American girl, penniless and pedigreeless, was beneath him, he never thought--of his own rank and wealth, as motives to influence her, he never once dreamed. Nothing base or mercenary could find a place in so fair a creature; so noble and beautiful a face must surely be emblematic of a still more noble and beautiful soul. Alas! for the blindness of people in love.

It was a day of delight, a day of cloudless skies, sparkling sunshine, fresh mountain breezes, sublime scenery. Wild, bleak valleys, frowning Kerry rocks, roaring torrents, bare-footed, ragged children, pigs and people beneath the same thatched roof, such squalor and utter poverty as in their dreams they had never imagined.

"Good Heaven!" Edith said, with a shudder, "how can life be worth living in such horrible poverty as this?"

"The bugbear of your life seems to be poverty, Edith," Charley answered. "I daresay these people eat and sleep, fall in love, marry, and are happy even here."

"My dear Mr. Stuart, what a sentimental speech, and sillier even than it is sentimental. Marry and are happy! They marry no doubt, and the pig lives in the corner, and every cabin swarms with children, but--_happy_! Charley, I used to think you had one or two grains of common-sense, at least--now I begin to doubt it."

"I begin to doubt it myself, since I have had the pleasure of knowing Edith Darrell. I defy mortal man to keep common-sense, or uncommon-sense, long in her company. Poverty and misery, in your lexicon, mean the same thing."

"The same thing. There is no earthly evil that can equal poverty."

They reached Killarney late in the evening, and drove to the "Victoria." The perfect weather still continued, the moon that had lit their last night at sea, on the wane now, lifted its silver light over the matchless Lakes of Killarney, lying like sheets of crystal light beneath.

"Oh, how lovely!" Trix exclaimed. The rest stood silent. There is a beauty so intense as to be beyond words of praise--so sweet, so solemn, as to hush the very beating of our hearts. It was such beauty as this they looked upon now.

They stood on the velvety sward--Sir Victor with Trixy on his arm, Charley and Edith side by side. A glowing mass of soft, scarlet drapery wrapped Miss Darrell, a coquettish hat, with a long, black ostrich plume, set off her Spanish face and eyes. They had dined--and when is moonlight half so poetical as after an excellent dinner?

"I see two or three boats," remarked Sir Victor. "I propose a row on the lakes."

"Of all things," seconded Beatrix, "a sail on the Lakes of Killarney! Edith, do you realize it? Let us go at once, Sir Victor."

"Will you come with me, Edith?" Charley asked, "or would you rather go with them?"

She looked at him in surprise. How grave his face--how quiet his tone! He had been like this all day, silent, preoccupied, grave.

"My very dear Charley, how polite we grow! how considerate of others' feelings! Quite a new phase of your interesting character. I'll go with you, certainly--Mr. Charles Stuart, in a state of lamblike meekness, is a study worth contemplating."

He smiled slightly, and drew her hand within his arm.

"Come, then," he said, "let us have this last evening together; who knows when we shall have another?"