A Knight of the Nineteenth Century Part 4

"Then this young man has been started wrong?

"Yes, wrong indeed."

"Is he so very bad, auntie?" Laura asked with a face full of serious concern.

Mrs. Arnot smiled as she said, "If you were a young society chit, you might think him 'very nice,' as their slang goes. He is good-looking and rich, and his inclination to be fast would be a piquant fact in his favor. He has done things which would seem to you very wrong indeed. But he is foolish and ill-trained rather than bad. He is a spoiled boy, and spoiled boys are apt to become spoiled men. I have told you all this partly because, having been your mother's companion all your life, you are so old-fashioned that I can talk to you almost as I would to sister f.a.n.n.y, and partly because I like to talk about my hobby."

A young girl naturally has quick sympathies, and all the influences of Laura's life had been gentle and humane. Her aunt's words speedily led her to regard Haldane as an "interesting case," a sort of fever patient who was approaching the crisis of his disease. Curling down on the floor, and leaning her arms on her aunt's lap, she looked up with a face full of solicitude as she asked:

"And don't you think you can save him? Please don't give up trying."

"I like the expression of your face now," said Mrs. Arnot, stroking the abundant tresses, that were falling loosely from the girl's head, "for in it I catch a glimpse of the divine image. Many think of G.o.d as looking down angrily and frowningly upon the foolish and wayward; but I see in the solicitude of your face a faint reflection of the 'Not willing that any should perish' which it ever seems to me is the expression of His."

"Laura," said she abruptly, after a moment, "did any one ever tell you that you were growing up very pretty?"

"No, auntie," said the girl, blushing and laughing.

"Mr. Haldane told you so this evening."

"O auntie, you are mistaken; he could not have been so rude."

"He did not make a set speech to that effect, my dear, but he told you so by his eyes and manner, only you are such an innocent home child that you did not notice. But when you go into society you will be told this fact so often that you will be compelled to heed it, and will soon learn the whole language of flattery, spoken and unspoken. Perhaps I had, better forewarn you a little, and so forearm you. What are you going to do with your beauty?"

"Why, auntie, how funny you talk! What should I do with it, granting that it has any existence save in your fond eyes?"

"Suppose you use it to make men better, instead of to make them merely admire you. One can't be a belle very long at best, and of all the querulous, discontented, and disagreeable people that I have met, superannuated belles, who could no longer obtain their revenue of flattery, were the worst. They were impoverished, indeed. If you do as I suggest, you will have much that is pleasant to think about when you come to be as old as I am. Perhaps you can do more for young Haldane than I can."

"Now, auntie, what can I do?"

"That which nearly all women can do: be kind and winning; make our safe, cosey parlor so attractive that he will not go out evenings to places which tend to destroy him. You feel an interest in him; show it. Ask him about his business, and get him to explain it to you. Suggest that if you were a man you would like to master your work, and become eminent in it. Show by your manner and by words, if occasion offers, that you love and revere all that is sacred, pure, and Christian. Laura, innocent dove as you are, you know that many women beguile men to ruin with smiles.

Men can be beguiled from ruin with smiles. Indeed, I think mult.i.tudes are permitted to go to destruction because women are so unattractive, so absorbed in themselves and their nerves. If mothers and wives, maidens and old maids, would all commence playing the agreeable to the men of their household and circle, not for the sake of a few compliments, but for the purpose of luring them from evil and making them better, the world would improve at once."

"I see, auntie," said Laura, laughing; "you wish to administer me as a sugar-coated pill to your 'difficult case.'"

A deep sigh was the only answer, and, looking up, Laura saw that her words had not been heeded. Tears were in her aunt's eyes, and after a moment she said brokenly:

"My theories seem true enough, and yet how signally I have failed in carrying them out! Perhaps it is my fault; perhaps it is my fault; but I've tried--oh! how I have tried! Laura, dear, you know that I am a lonely woman; but do not let this prejudice you against what I have said. Good-night, dear; I have kept you up too long after your journey."

Her niece understood her allusion to the cold, unloving man who sat alone every evening in his dim library, thinking rarely of his wife, but often of her wealth, and how it might increase his leverage in his herculean labors. The young girl had the tact to reply only by a warm, lingering embrace. It was an old sorrow, of which she had long been aware; but it seemed without remedy, and was rarely touched upon.

CHAPTER V

Pa.s.sION'S CLAMOR

Laura had a strong affection for her aunt, and would naturally be inclined to gratify any wishes that she might express, even had they involved tasks uncongenial and unattractive. But the proposal that she should become an ally in the effort to lure young Haldane from his evil a.s.sociations, and awaken within him pure and refined tastes, was decidedly attractive. She was peculiarly romantic in her disposition, and no rude contact with the commonplace, common-sense world had chastened her innocent fancies by harsh and disagreeable experience. Her Christian training and girlish simplicity lifted her above the ordinary romanticism of imagining herself the heroine in every instance, and the object and end of all masculine aspirations. On this occasion she simply desired to act the part of a humble a.s.sistant of Mrs. Arnot, whom she regarded as Haldane's good angel; and she was quite as disinterested in her hope for the young man's moral improvement as her aunt herself.

The task, moreover, was doubly pleasing since she could perform it in a way that was so womanly and agreeable. She could scarcely have given Haldane a plain talk on the evils of fast living to save her life, but if she could keep young men from going to destruction by smiling upon them, by games of backgammon and by music, she felt in the mood to be a missionary all her life, especially if she could have so safe and attractive a field of labor as her aunt's back parlor.

But the poor child would soon learn that perverse human nature is much the same in a drawing-room and a tenement-house, and that all who seek to improve it are doomed to meet much that is excessively annoying and discouraging.

The simple-hearted girl no more foresaw what might result from her smiles than an ignorant child would antic.i.p.ate the consequences of fire falling on grains of harmless-looking black sand. She had never seen pa.s.sion kindling and flaming till it seemed like a scorching fire, and had not learned by experience that in some circ.u.mstances her smiles might be like incendiary sparks to powder.

In seeking to manage her "difficult case," Mrs. Arnot should have foreseen the danger of employing such a fascinating young creature as her a.s.sistant; but in these matters the wisest often err, and only comprehend the evil after it has occurred. Laura was but a child in years, having pa.s.sed her fifteenth birthday only a few months previous, and Haldane seemed to the lady scarcely more than a boy. She did not intend that her niece should manifest anything more than a little winning kindness and interest, barely enough to keep the young fellow from spending his evenings out she knew not where. He was at just the age when the glitter and tinsel of public amus.e.m.e.nts are most attractive. She believed that if she could familiarize his mind with the real gold and clear diamond flash of pure home pleasures, and those which are enjoyed in good society, he would eventually become disgusted with gilt, varnish, and paste. If Laura had been a very plain girl, she might have seconded Mrs. Arnot's efforts to the utmost without any unpleasant results, even if no good ones had followed; and it may well be doubted whether any of the latter would have ensued. Haldane's disease was too deeply rooted, and his tastes vitiated to such a degree that he had lost the power to relish long the simple enjoyments of Mrs.

Arnot's parlor. He already craved the pleasures which first kindle and excite and then consume.

Laura, however, was not plain and ordinary, and the smiles which were intended as innocent lures from snares, instead of into them, might make trouble for all concerned. Haldane was naturally combustible, to begin with, and was now at the most inflammable period of his life.

The profoundest master of human nature portrayed to the world a Romeo and a Juliet, both mastered by a pa.s.sion which but a few words and glances had kindled. There are many Romeos who do not find their Juliets so sympathetic and responsive, and they usually develop at about the age of Haldane. Indeed, nearly all young men of sanguine temperaments go through the Romeo stage, and they are fortunate if they pa.s.s it without doing anything especially ridiculous or disastrous. These sudden attacks are exceedingly absurd to older and cooler friends, but to the victims themselves they are tremendously real and tragic for the time being.

More hearts are broken into indefinite fragments before twenty than ever after; but, like the broken bones of the young, they usually knit readily together again, and are just as good for all practical purposes.

There was nothing unusual in the fact, therefore, that Haldane was soon deeply enamored with his new acquaintance. It was true that Laura had given him the mildest and most innocent kind of encouragement--and the result would probably have been the same if she had given him none at all--but his vanity, and what he chose to regard as his "undying love,"

interpreted all her actions, and gave volumes of meaning to a kindly glance or a pleasant word. Indeed, before there had been time to carry out, to any extent, the tactics her aunt had proposed, symptoms of his malady appeared. While she was regarding him merely as one of her aunt's "cases," and a very hard one at best, and thought of herself as trying to help a little, as a child might hold a bandage or a medicine phial for experienced hands, he, on the contrary, had begun to mutter to himself that she was "the divinest woman G.o.d ever fashioned."

There was now no trouble about his spending evenings elsewhere, and the maiden was perplexed and annoyed at finding her winning ways far too successful, and that the one she barely hoped to keep from the vague--and to her mind, horrible--places of temptation, was becoming as adhesive as sticking-plaster. If she smiled, he smiled and ogled far too much in return. If she chatted with one and another of the young men who found Mrs. Arnot's parlor the most attractive place open to them in the town, he would a.s.sume a manner designed to be darkly tragical, but which to the young girl had more the appearance of sulking.

She was not so much of a child as to be unable to comprehend Haldane's symptoms, and she was sufficiently a woman not to be excessively angry.

And yet she was greatly annoyed and perplexed. At times his action seemed so absurd that she was glad to escape to her room, that she might give way to her merriment; and again he would appear so much in earnest that she was quite as inclined to cry and to think seriously of bringing her visit to an abrupt termination.

While under Mrs. Arnot's eye Haldane was distant and circ.u.mspect, but the moment he was alone with Laura his manner became unmistakably demonstrative.

At first she was disposed to tell her aunt all about the young man's sentimental manner, but the fact that it seemed so ridiculous deterred her. She still regarded herself as a child, and that any one should be seriously in love with her after but a few days' acquaintance seemed absurdity itself. Her aunt might think her very vain for even imagining such a thing, and, perhaps, after all it was only her own imagination.

"Mr. Haldane has acted queerly from the first," she concluded, "and the best thing I can do is to think no more about him, and let auntie manage her 'difficult case' without me. If I am to help in these matters, I had better commence with a 'case' that is not so 'difficult.'"

She therefore sought to avoid the young man, and prove by her manner that she was utterly indifferent to him, hoping that this course would speedily cure him of his folly. She would venture into the parlor only when her aunt or guests were there, and would then try to make herself generally agreeable, without an apparent thought for him.

While she a.s.sured herself that she did not like him, and that he was in no respect a person to be admired and liked, she still found herself thinking about him quite often. He was her first recognized lover.

Indeed, few had found opportunity to give more than admiring glances to the little nun, who thus far had been secluded almost continuously in the safest of all cloisters--a country home. It was a decided novelty that a young man, almost six feet in height, should be looking unutterable things in her direction whenever she was present. She wished he wouldn't, but since he would, she could not help thinking about him, and how she could manage to make him "behave sensibly."

She did not maintain her air of indifference very perfectly, however, for she had never been schooled by experience, and was acting solely on the intuitions of her s.e.x. She could not forbear giving a quick glance occasionally to see how he was taking his lesson. At times he was scowling and angry, and then she could maintain her part without difficulty; again he would look so miserable that, out of pity, she would relent into a half smile, but immediately reproach herself for being "so foolish."

Haldane's manner soon attracted Mrs. Arnot's attention, notwithstanding his effort to disguise from her his feeling and a little observation on the part of the experienced matron enabled her to guess how matters stood. While Mrs. Arnot was perplexed and provoked by this new complication in Haldane's case, she was too kindly in her nature not to feel sorry for him. She was also so well versed in human nature as to be aware that she could not sit down and coolly talk him out of his folly.

Besides it was not necessarily folly. The youth was but following a law of nature, and following it, too, in much the same manner as had his fathers before him since the beginning of time. There would not be any thing essentially wrong in an attachment between these young people, if it sprang up naturally; only it would be necessary to impress upon them the fact that they were _young_, and that for years to come their minds should be largely occupied with other matters. Haldane certainly would not have been her choice for Laura, but if a strong attachment became the means of steadying him and of inciting to the formation of a fine character, all might be well in the end. She was morbidly anxious, however, that her niece should not meet with any such disappointment in life as had fallen to her lot, and should the current of the young girl's affection tend steadily in his direction she would deeply regret the fact.

She would regret exceedingly, also, to have the young girl's mind occupied by thoughts of such a nature for years to come. Her education was unfinished; she was very immature, and should not make so important a choice until she had seen much more of society, and time had been given for the formation of her tastes and character.

Mrs. Arnot soon concluded that it would be wiser to prevent trouble than to remedy it, and that Laura had better return speedily to the safe asylum of her own home. She could then suggest to Haldane that if he hoped to win the maiden in after years he must form a character worthy of her.

Had she carried out her plan that day all might have turned out differently, but the advanced in life are p.r.o.ne to forget the impetuosity of youth. Haldane was already ripe for a declaration, or, more properly, an explosion of his pent-up feelings, and was only awaiting an opportunity to insist upon his own acceptance. He was so possessed and absorbed by his emotions that he felt sure they would sweep away all obstacles. He imagined himself pleading his cause in a way that would melt a marble heart; and both vanity and hope had whispered that Laura was a shy maiden, secretly responsive to his pa.s.sion, and only awaiting his frank avowal before showing her own heart. Else why had she been so kind at first? Having won his love, was she not seeking now to goad him on to its utterance by a sudden change of manner?

Thus he reasoned, as have many others equally blind.

On becoming aware of Haldane's pa.s.sion, Mrs. Arnot resolved to sedulously guard her niece, and prevent any premature and disagreeable scenes. She was not long in discovering that the feeling, as yet, was all on the young man's side, and believed that by a little adroitness she could manage the affair so that no harm would result to either party.