Prince Fortunatus Part 52

"Well, I will tell you the truth, Maurice," he blurted out, at last. "I got engaged to her in a fit of restlessness or caprice, or some such ridiculous nonsense, and I don't regret it; I mean, I am willing to stand by it; but that is not enough for her, and I can look forward to nothing but a perpetual series of differences and quarrels. She expects me to play Harry Thornhill off the stage, I suppose."

Mangan looked at him for some time.

"Even between friends," he said, slowly, "there are some things it is difficult to talk about with safety. Of course you know what an outsider would say: that you had got into a devil of a mess; that you had blundered into an engagement with a woman whom you find you don't want to marry."

"Well, is there anything uncommon in that?" Lionel demanded. "Is that an unusual experience in human life? But I don't admit as much, in my case. I am quite willing to marry her, so long as she keeps her temper, and doesn't expect me to play the fool. I dare say we shall get on well enough, like other people, after the fateful deed is done. In the meantime," he added, with a forced laugh--"in the meantime, I find myself now and again wishing I was a sailor brave and bold, careering round the Cape of Good Hope in a gale of wind, and with no loftier aspiration in my mind than a pint of rum and a well-filled pipe."

"Faith, I think that's just where you ought to be," said Mangan, dryly, "instead of in this town of London, at the present moment. I declare you've quite bewildered me. If you had told me you were engaged to that tall salmon-fishing girl--you used to talk about her a good deal, you know--or to that fascinating young Italian creature--and I've seen before now how easily the gentle friend and companion can be transformed into a sweetheart--I should have been ready with all kinds of pretty speeches and good wishes. But Miss Burgoyne of the New Theatre? Linn, my boy, I've discovered what's the matter with you, and I can prescribe an absolutely certain cure."

"What is it?"

"The cure? You have partly suggested it yourself. You must go at once and take your pa.s.sage in a sailing ship for Australia. You can stay there for a time and examine the colony; of course you'll write a book about it, like everybody else. Then you make your way to San Francisco, and accept a three-months' engagement there. You come on to New York, and accept a three-months' engagement there. And when you return to England you will find that all your troubles have vanished, and that you are once again the Linn Moore we all of us used to know."

A wild fancy flashed through Lionel's brain; what if in these far wanderings he were suddenly to encounter Nina? In vain--in vain; Nina had become for him but a shadow, a ghost, with no voice to call to him from any sphere.

"You would have me run away?--I don't see how I can do that," he said, quietly; and then he abruptly changed the subject. "What did you think of Lady Adela?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I've been wondering whether she were at the same time a smart and clever woman and an abject fool, or whether she were simply smart and clever and thought me an abject fool. It must be either one or the other. She played the literary _ingenue_ very well--a little too openly, perhaps. I'm curious about her book--"

"Oh, don't judge of her by her book!" Lionel exclaimed. "That isn't fair. Her book you may very likely consider foolish--not at all. I suppose her head is a little bit turned by the things that Quirk and those fellows have been writing about her; but that's only natural. And if she showed her hand a little too freely in trying to interest you in her novel, you must remember how eager she is to succeed. You'll do what you can for her book--won't you, Maurice?"

Maurice Mangan, on his way home that night, had other things to think of than Lady Adela's poor little book. He saw clearly enough the embroilment into which Lionel had landed himself; but he could not see so clearly how he was to get out of it. One question he forgot to ask: what had induced that mood of petulance or recklessness, or both combined, in which Lionel had wilfully and madly pledged all his future life? However, the thing was done; here was his friend going forward to a _mariage de convenance_ (where there was very little _convenance_, to be sure) with a sort of careless indifference, if not of bravado; while his bride, on the other hand, might surely be pardoned if she resented, and indignantly resented, his att.i.tude towards her. What kind of prospect was this for two young people? Maurice thought that on the very first opportunity he would go away down to Winstead and talk the matter over with Francie; who than she more capable of advising in aught concerning Lionel's welfare?

Notwithstanding his intercession with Maurice on behalf of Lady Adela's forthcoming novel, Lionel did not seem disposed to resume the friendly relations with the people up at Campden Hill which had formerly existed.

He did not even call after the dinner-party. If Mr. Octavius Quirk were for the moment installed as chief favorite, he had no wish to interfere with him; there were plenty of other houses open, if one chose to go.

But the fact is, Lionel now spent many afternoons and nearly every evening at the Garden Club; whist before dinner, poker after supper, being the established rule. Moreover, a new element had been introduced, as far as he was concerned. Mr. Percival Miles had been elected a member of the club, and had forthwith presented himself in the card-room, where he at once distinguished himself by his bold and intrepid play. The curious thing was that, while openly professing a kind of cold acquaintanceship, it was invariably against Lionel Moore that he made his most determined stand; with the other players he might play an ordinarily discreet and cautious game; but when Moore could be challenged, this pale-faced young man never failed promptly to seize the opportunity. And the worst of it was that he had extraordinary luck, both in the run of the cards and in his manoeuvres.

"What is that young whipper-snapper up to?" Lionel said to himself, after a particularly bad night (and morning) as he sat staring into the dead ashes of his fireplace. "He wanted to take my life--until my good angel interfered and saved me. Now does he want to break me financially?

By Jove! they're coming near to doing it among them. I shall have to go to Moss to-morrow for another 250. Well, what does it matter? The luck must turn some time. If it doesn't?--if it doesn't?--then there may come the trip before the mast, as the final panacea, according to Maurice.

Australia?--there would be freedom there, and perhaps forgetfulness."

As he was pa.s.sing into his bedroom he chanced to observe a package that was lying on a chair, and for a second he glanced at the handwriting of the address. It was Miss Burgoyne's. What could she want with him now?

He cut the string, and opened the parcel; behold, here was the brown-and-scarlet woollen vest that she had knitted for him with her own fair hands. Why these impatiently down-drawn brows? A true lover would have pa.s.sionately kissed this tender token of affection, and bethought him of all the hours and half-hours and quarters of an hour during which she had been employed in her pretty task, no doubt thinking of him all the time. Alas! the love-gift was almost angrily thrown on to the chair again--and he went into his own room.

CHAPTER XXII.

PRIUS DEMENTAT.

When Maurice Mangan left the train at Winstead, and climbed out of the deep chalk cutting in which the station is buried, and emerged upon the open downs, he found himself in a very different world from that he had left. Far away behind him lay the great city (even now the dusky dome of St. Paul's was visible across the level swathes of landscape), with its miry ways and teeming population and continuous thunder of traffic; while here were the windy skies of a wild March morning and swaying trees and cawing rooks and air that was sweet in the nostrils and soft to the throat. As he light-heartedly strode away across the undulations of blossoming gorse, fragments of song from his favorite poets chased one another through his brain; and somehow they were all connected with the glad opening out of the year--"And then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils"--"Along the gra.s.s sweet airs are blown, our way this day in spring"--"And in the gloaming o' the wood, the throssil whistled sweet"--Mangan could sing no more than a crow; but he felt as if he were singing; there was a kind of music in the long stride, the quick pulse, the deep inhalations of the delicious air. For all was going to be well now; he was about to consult Francie as to Lionel's sad estate. He did not stay to ask himself whether it were likely that a quiet and gentle girl, living in this secluded neighborhood, could be of much help in such a matter; it was enough that he was going to talk it all over with Miss Francie; things would be clearer then.

Now, as you go up from Winstead Station to Winstead Village, there is a strip of coppice that runs parallel with one part of the highway; and through this prolonged dingle a pathway meanders, which he who is not in a hurry may prefer to the road. Of course Mangan chose this pleasanter way, though he had to moderate his pace now because of the briars; and right glad was he to notice the various symptoms of the new-born life of the world--the pale anemones stirred by the warm, moist breeze, the delicate blossoms of the little wood-sorrel, the budded raceme of the wild hyacinth; while loud and clear a blackbird sang from a neighboring bough. He did not expect to meet any one; he certainly did not expect to meet Miss Francie Wright, who would doubtless be away at her cottages.

But all of a sudden he was startled by the apparition of a rabbit that came running towards him, and then, seeing him, bolted off at right angles; and as this caused him to look up from his botanizings, here, unmistakably, was Miss Francie, coming along through the glade. Her pale complexion showed a little color as she drew near; but there was not much embarra.s.sment in the calm, kind eyes.

"This is indeed a stroke of good-fortune," he said, "for I came down for the very purpose of having a talk with you all by yourself--about Lionel. But I did not imagine I should meet you here."

"I am going down to the station," she said. "I expect a parcel by the train you must have come by; and I want it at once."

"May I go with you and carry it for you?" he said, promptly; and of course she could not refuse so civil an offer. The awkward part of the arrangement was that they had to go along through this straggling strip of wood in single file, making a really confidential chat almost an impossibility; whereupon he proposed, and she agreed, that they should get out into the highway; and thereafter they went on to the station by the ordinary road.

But this task he had undertaken proved to be a great deal more difficult and delicate than he had antic.i.p.ated. To have a talk with Francie--that seemed simple enough; it was less simple, as he discovered, to have to tell Lionel's cousin that the young man had gone and engaged himself to be married. Indeed, he beat about the bush for a considerable time.

"You see," he said, "a young fellow at his time of life, especially if he has been petted a good deal, is very apt to be wayward and restless, and likely to get into trouble through the mere impulsiveness, the recklessness of youth--"

"Mr. Mangan," Miss Francie said, with a smile in the quiet gray eyes, "why do you always talk of Linn as if he were so much younger than you?

There is no great difference. You always speak as if you were quite middle-aged."

"I am worse than middle-aged--I am resigned, and read Marcus Aurelius,"

he said. "I suppose I have taken life too easily. Youth is the time for fighting; there is no fight left in me at all; I accept what happens.

Oh, by the way, when my book on Comte comes out, I may have to buckle on my armor again; I suppose there will be strife and war and deadly thrusts; unless, indeed, the Positivists may not consider me worth answering. However, that is of no consequence; it's about Linn I have come down; and really, Miss Francie, I fear he is in a bad way, and that he is taking a worse way to get out of it."

"I am very sorry to hear that," she said, gravely.

"And then he's such a good fellow," Mangan continued. "If he were selfish or cruel or grasping, one might think that a few buffets from the world might rather be of service to him; but as it is I don't understand at all how he has got himself into such a position--or been entrapped into it; you see, I don't know Miss Burgoyne very well--"

"Miss Burgoyne?" she repeated, doubtfully.

"Miss Burgoyne of the New Theatre."

Then Mangan watched his companion, timidly and furtively--which was a strange thing for him, for ordinarily his deep-set gray eyes were singularly intense and sincere.

"Perhaps I ought to tell you at once," he said, slowly, "that--that--the fact is, Lionel is engaged to be married to Miss Burgoyne."

"Lionel--engaged to be married?" she said, quickly, and she looked up.

He met her eyes and read them; surely there was nothing there other than a certain pleased curiosity; she had forgotten that this engagement might be the cause of her cousin's trouble; she only seemed to think it odd that Linn was about to be married.

"Yes; and now I am afraid he regrets his rashness, and is in terrible trouble over it--or perhaps that is only one of several things. Well, I had made other forecasts for him," Mangan went on to say, with a little hesitation. "I could have imagined another future for him. Indeed, at one time, I thought that if ever he looked out for a wife it would be--a little nearer home--"

Her eyes were swiftly downcast; but the next instant she had bravely raised them and was regarding him.

"Do you mean me, Mr. Mangan?" she asked.

He did not answer; he left her to understand. Miss Francie shook her head, and there was a slight smile on her lips.

"No, no," she said. "That was never possible at any time. Where was your clear sight, Mr. Mangan? Of course I am very fond of Linn; I have been so all my life; and there's nothing I wouldn't do to save him trouble or pain. But even a stupid country girl may form her ideal--and in my case Lionel never came anywhere near to that. I know he is good and generous and manly--he is quite wonderful, considering what he has come through; but on the other hand--well--oh, well, I'm not going to say anything against Linn--I will not."

"I am sure you will not," said Mangan, quietly; and here they reached the station.

The parcel had not arrived; there was nothing for it but to retrace their steps; and on their way across the common they returned to Lionel and his wretched plight.

"Surely," said Miss Francie, with a touch of indication in her voice--"surely, if Miss Burgoyne learns that he is fretting over this engagement, she will release him at once. No woman could be so shameless as to keep him to an unwilling bargain--"

"I am not so sure about that," Mangan made answer. "She may think she has affection for two, and that all will be well. It is a good match for her. His position in his profession and in society will be advantageous to her. Then she may be vain of her conquest--so many different motives may come in. But the chief point is that Linn doesn't want to be released from this engagement; he declares he will abide by it--if only she doesn't expect him to be very affectionate. It is an extraordinary imbroglio altogether; I am beginning to believe that all the time he has been in love with that Italian girl whom he knew in Naples, and who was in the New Theatre for a while, and that now he has made the discovery, when it is too late, he doesn't care what happens to him. She has gone away; he has no idea where she is; here he is engaged to Miss Burgoyne, and quite willing to marry her; and in the meantime he plays cards heavily to escape from thinking. In fact, he is not taking the least care of himself, and you would be surprised at the change in his appearance already. It isn't like Linn Moore to talk of going to bed when he ought to be setting out for a dinner-party; and the worst of it is, he won't pay any heed to what you say to him. But something must be done; Linn is too good a fellow to be allowed to go to the mischief without some kind of protest or interference."

"If you like," said Miss Francie, slowly, "I will go to Miss Burgoyne.