Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters Part 21

"How dared he do it--how dared he?" she thought "knowing me to be Kate's sister. I hate him! oh, I hate him!"

And here Rose broke down, and finding the hysterics would come, fled away to her room, and cried vindictively for two hours.

She got up at last, sullen and composed. Her mind was made up. She would show Mr. Reinecourt (Mr. Reinecourt indeed)! how much she cared for him.

He should see the freezing indifference with which she could treat him; he should see she was not to be fooled with impunity.

Rose bathed her flushed and tear-stained face until every trace of the hysterics was gone, called Agnes Darling to curl her hair and dress her in a new blue glace, in which she looked lovely. Then, with a glow like fever on her cheeks, a fire like fever in her eyes, she went down stairs. In the hall she met Eeny.

"Oh, Rose! I was just going up to your room. Kate wants you."

"Does she? What for?"

"Mr. Stanford has come. He is with her in the drawing-room; and, Rose, he is the handsomest man I ever saw."

Rose shook back her curls disdainfully, and descended to the drawing-room. _A la princesse_ she sailed in, and saw the late M.

Reinecourt seated by the window, Kate beside him, with, oh, such a happy face! She arose at her sister's entrance, a smile of infinite content on her face.

"Reginald, my sister Rose. Rose, Mr. Stanford."

Rose made the most graceful bow that ever was seen, not the faintest sign of recognition in her face. She hardly glanced at Mr. Stanford--she was afraid to trust herself too far--she was afraid to meet those magnetic dark eyes. If he looked aback at her _sang-froid_, she did not see it. She swept by as majestically as Kate herself, and took a distant seat.

Kate's face showed her surprise. Rose had been a puzzle to her of late; she was more a puzzle now than ever. Rose was standing on her dignity, that was evident; and Rose did not often stand on that pedestal. She would not talk, or only in monosyllables. Her replies to Mr. Stanford were pointedly cold and brief. She sat, looking very pretty in her blue glace and bright curls, her fingers toying idly with her chatelaine and trinkets, and as unapproachable as a grand d.u.c.h.ess.

Mr. Stanford made no attempt to approach her. He sat and talked to his betrothed of the old times and the old friends and places, and seemed to forget there was any one else in the world. Rose listened, with a heart swelling with angry bitterness--silent, except when discreetly addressed by Kate, and longing vindictively to spring up and tell the handsome, treacherous Englishman what she thought of him there and then.

As luncheon hour drew near, her father, who had been absent, returned with Sir Ronald Keith and Doctor Danton. They were all going upstairs; but Kate, with a happy flush on her face, looked out of the drawing-room door.

"Come in papa," she said; "come in, Sir Ronald; there is an old friend here."

She smiled a bright invitation to the young Doctor, who went in also.

Reginald Stanford stood up. Captain Danton, with a delighted "Hallo!"

grasped both his hands.

"Reginald, my dear boy, I am delighted, more than delighted, to see you.

Welcome to Canada, Sir Ronald; this is more than we bargained for."

"I was surprised to find you here, Sir Ronald," said the young officer, shaking the baronet's hand cordially; "very happy to meet you again."

Sir Ronald, with a dark flush on his face, bowed stiffly, in silence, and moved away.

Doctor Frank was introduced, made his bow, and retreated to Rose's sofa.

Capricious womanhood! Rose, that morning, had decidedly snubbed him; Rose, at noon, welcomed him with her most radiant smile. Never, perhaps, in all his experience had any young lady listened to him with such flattering attention, with such absorbed interest. Never had bright eyes and rosy lips given him such glances and smiles. She hung on his words; she had eyes and ears for no one else, least of all for the supremely handsome gentleman who was her sister's betrothed, and who talked to her father; while Sir Ronald glowered over a book.

The ringing of the luncheon-bell brought Grace and Eeny, and all were soon seated around the Captain's hospitable board.

Lieutenant Reginald Stanford laid himself out to be fascinating, and was fascinating. There was a subtle charm in his handsome face, in his brilliant smile and glance, in his pleasant voice, in his wittily-told stories, and inexhaustible fund of anecdote and mimicry. Now he was in Ireland, now in France, now in Scotland, now in Yorkshire; and the bad English and the _patois_ and accent of all were imitated to the life.

With that face, that voice, that talent for imitation, Lieutenant Stanford, in another walk of life, might have made his fortune on the stage. His power of fascination was irresistible. Grace felt it, Eeny felt it, all felt it, except Sir Ronald Keith. He sat like the Marble Guest, not fascinated, not charmed, black and unsmiling.

Rose, too--what was the matter with Rose? She, so acutely alive to well-told stories, to handsome faces, so rigidly cold, and stately, and uninterested now. She shrugged her dimpled shoulders when the table was in a roar; she opened her rather small hazel eyes and stared, as if she wondered, what they could see to laugh at. She did not even deign to glance at him, the hero of the feast; and, in fact, so greatly overdid her part as to excite the suspicions of that astute young man, Doctor Danton. There is no effect without a cause. What was the cause of Rose's icy indifference? He looked at her, then at Stanford, then back at her, and set himself to watch.

"She has met him before," thought the shrewd Doctor; "but where, if he has just come from England? I'll ask him, I think."

It was some time before there was a pause in the conversation. In the first, Dr. Frank struck in.

"How did you come, Mr. Stanford?" he asked.

"On the Hysperia, from Southampton to New York."

"How long ago?" inquired Kate, indirectly helping him; "a week?"

"No," said Lieutenant Stanford, coolly carving his cold ham; "nearly five."

Every one stared. Kate looked blankly amazed.

"Impossible!" she exclaimed; "five weeks since you landed in New York?

Surely not."

"Quite true, I a.s.sure you. The way was this--"

He paused and looked at Rose, who had spilled a gla.s.s of wine, trying to lift it, in a hand that shook strangely. Her eyes were downcast, her cheeks scarlet, her whole manner palpably and inexplicably embarra.s.sed.

"Four, weeks ago, I reached Canada. I did not write you, Kate, that I was coming. I wished to give you a surprise. I stopped at Belleplain--you know the town of Belleplain, thirty miles from here--to see a brother officer I had known at Windsor. Travelling from Belleplain in a confounded stage, I stopped half frozen at an old farm-house six miles off. Next morning, pursuing my journey on foot, I met with a little mishap."

He paused provokingly to fill at his leisure a gla.s.s of sherry; and Doctor Danton watching Rose under his eyelashes, saw the colour coming and going in her traitor face.

"I slipped on a sheet of ice," continued Mr. Stanford. "I am not used to your horrible Canadian roads, remember, and strained my ankle badly. I had to be conveyed back to the farm-house on a sled--medical attendance procured, and for three weeks I have been a prisoner there. I could have sent you word, no doubt, and put you to no end of trouble bringing me here, but I did not like that; I did not care to turn Danton Hall into a hospital, and go limping through life; so I made the best of a bad bargain and stayed where I was."

There was a general murmur of sympathy from all but Sir Ronald and Rose.

Sir Ronald sat like a grim statue in granite; and Rose, still fluttering and tremulous, did not dare to lift her eyes.

"You must have found it very lonely," said Doctor Danton.

"No. I regretted not getting here, of course; but otherwise it was not unpleasant. They took such capital care of me, you see, and I had a select little library at my command; so, on the whole, I have been in much more disagreeable quarters in my lifetime."

Doctor Frank said no more. He had gained his point, and he was satisfied.

"It is quite clear," he thought. "By some hocus-pocus, Miss Rose has made his acquaintance during those three weeks, and helped the slow time to pa.s.s. He did not tell her he was her sister's lover, hence the present frigidity. The long morning rides are accounted for now. I wonder"--he looked at pretty Rose--"I wonder if the matter will end here?"

It seemed as if it would. Doctor Danton, coming every day to the Hall, and closely observant always, saw no symptoms of thawing out on Rose's part, and no effort to please on the side of Mr. Stanford. He treated her as he treated Eeny and Grace, courteously, genially, but nothing more. He was all devotion to his beautiful betrothed, and Kate--what words can paint the infinite happiness of her face! All that was wanting to make her beauty perfect was found. She had grown so gentle, so sweet, so patient with all; she was so supremely blessed herself, she could afford to stoop to the weaknesses of less fortunate mortals. That indescribable change, the radiance of her eyes, the buoyancy of her step, the lovely colour that deepened and died, the smiles that came so rapidly now--all told how much she loved Reginald Stanford.

Was it returned, that absorbing devotion? He was very devoted; he was beside her when she sang; he sought her always when he entered the room, he was her escort on all occasions; but--was it returned? It seemed to Doctor Frank, watching quietly, that there was something wanting--something too vague to be described, but lacking. Kate did not miss it herself, and it might be only a fancy. Perhaps it was that she was above and beyond him, with thoughts and feelings in that earnest heart of hers he could never understand. He was very handsome, very brilliant; but underlying the beauty and the brilliancy of the surface there was shallowness, and selfishness, and falsity.

He was walking up and down the tamarack walk, thinking of this and smoking a cigar, one evening, about a week after the arrival of Stanford. The February twilight fell tenderly over snowy ground, dark, stripped trees, and grim old mansion. A mild evening, windless and spring-like, with the full moon rising round and red. His walk commanded a view of the great frozen fish-pond where a lively scene was going on.

Kate, Rose, and Eeny, strapped in skates, were floating round and round, attended by the Captain and Lieutenant Stanford.

Rose was the best skater on the pond, and looked charming in her tucked-up dress, crimson petticoat, dainty boots, and coquettish hat and plume. She flitted in a dizzying circle ahead of all the rest, disdaining to join them. Stanford skated very well for an Englishman, and a.s.sisted Kate, who was not very proficient in the art. Captain Danton had Eeny by the hand, and the gay laughter of the party made the still air ring. Grace stood on the edge of the pond watching them, and resisting the Captain's entreaties to come on the ice and let him teach her to skate. Her brother joined her, coming up suddenly, with Tiger at his side.