Stella Fregelius Part 30

"By my voice and violin, if one can sing and play with a sore heart. I have an old aunt, a sister of my father's, who is a music mistress, with whom I daresay I can arrange to live, and who may be able to get me some introductions."

"I hope that I can help you there, and I will to the best of my ability; indeed, if necessary, I will go to town and see about things. Allow me to add this, Miss Fregelius, that I think you are doing a very brave thing, and, what is more, a very wise one; and I believe that before long we shall hear of you as the great new contralto."

She shrugged her shoulders. "It may be; I don't care. Good-bye. By the way, I wish to see Mr. Monk once more before I go; it would be better for us all. I suppose that you don't object to that, do you?"

"Miss Fregelius, my son is a man advancing towards middle age. It is entirely a point for you and him to decide, and I will only say that I have every confidence in you."

"Thank you," she answered, and turning, walked rapidly down the lonely beach till her figure melted into the gathering gloom of the winter's night. Once, however, when she thought that she was out of eyeshot, he saw her stop with her face towards the vast and bitter sea, and saw also that she was wringing her hands in an agony of the uttermost despair.

"She looks like a ghost," said the Colonel aloud with a little shiver, "like a helpless, homeless ghost, with the world behind her and the infinite in front, and nothing to stand on but a patch of shifting sand, wet with her own tears."

When the Colonel grew thus figurative and poetical it may be surmised by anyone who has taken the trouble to study his mixed and somewhat worldly character that he was deeply moved. And he was moved; more so, indeed, than he had been since the death of his wife. Why? He would have found it hard to explain. On the face of it, the story was of a trivial order, and in some of its aspects rather absurd. Two young people who happened to be congenial, but one of whom was engaged, chance to be thrown together for a couple of months in a country house. Although there is some gossip, nothing at all occurs between them beyond a little perfectly natural flirtation. The young man's father, hearing the gossip, speaks to the young lady in order that she may take steps to protect herself and his son against surmise and misinterpretation.

Thereupon a sudden flood of light breaks upon her soul, by which she sees that she is really attached to the young man, and being a woman of unusual character, or perhaps absurdly averse to lying even upon such a subject, in answer to a question admits that this is so, and that she very properly intends to go away.

Could anything be more commonplace, more in the natural order of events?

Why, then, was he moved? Oh! it was that woman's face and eyes. Old as he might be, he felt jealous of his son; jealous to think that for him such a woman could wear this countenance of wonderful and thrilling woe.

What was there in Morris that it should have called forth this depth of pa.s.sion undefiled? Now, if there were no Mary--but there was a Mary, it was folly to pursue such a line of thought.

From sympathy for Stella, which was deep and genuine, to anger with his son proved to the Colonel an easy step. Morris was that worst of sinners, a hypocrite. Morris, being engaged to one woman, had taken advantage of her absence deliberately to involve the affections of another, or, at any rate, caused her considerable inconvenience. He was wroth with Morris, and what was more, before he grew an hour older he would let him have a piece of his mind.

He found the sinner in his workshop, the chapel, making mathematical calculations, the very sight of which added to his father's indignation.

The man, he reflected to himself, who under these circ.u.mstances could indulge an abnormal talent for mathematics, especially on Sunday, must be a cold-blooded brute. He entered the place slamming the door behind him; and Morris looking up noted with alarm, for he hated rows, that there was war in his eye.

"Won't you take a chair, father?" he said.

"No, thank you; I would rather say what I have to say standing."

"What is the matter?"

"The matter is, sir, that I find that by your attentions you have made that poor girl, Miss Fregelius, while she was a guest in my house, the object of slander and scandal to every ill-natured gossip in the three parishes."

Morris's quiet, thoughtful eyes flashed in an ominous and unusual manner.

"If you were not my father," he said, "I should ask you to change your tone in speaking to me on such a subject; but as things are I suppose that I must submit to it, unless you choose otherwise."

"The facts, Morris," answered his father, "justify any language that I can use."

"Did you get these facts from Stephen Layard and Miss Layard? Ah! I guessed as much. Well, the story is a lie; I was merely arranging her hood which she could not do herself, as the wind forced her to use her hand to hold her dress down."

The thought of his own ingenuity in hitting on the right solution of the story mollified the Colonel not a little.

"Pshaw," he said, "I knew that. Do you suppose that I believed you fool enough to kiss a girl on the open road when you had every opportunity of kissing her at home? I know, too, that you have never kissed her at all; or, ostensibly at any rate, done anything that you shouldn't do."

"What is my offence, then?" asked Morris.

"Your offence is that you have got her talked about; that you have made her in love with you--don't deny it; I have it from her own lips. That you have driven her out of this place to earn a living in London as best she may, and that, being yourself an engaged man"--here once more the Colonel drew a bow at a venture--"you are what is called in love with her yourself."

These two were easy victims to the skill of so experienced an archer.

The shaft went home between the joints of his son's harness, and Morris sank back in his chair and turned white. Generosity, or perhaps the fear of exciting more unpleasant consequences, prevented the Colonel from following up this head of his advantage.

"There is more, a great deal more, behind," he went on. "For instance, all this will probably come to Mary's ears."

"Certainly it will; I shall tell her of it myself."

"Which will be tantamount to breaking your engagement. May I ask if that is your intention?"

"No; but supposing that all you say were true, and that it _was_ my intention, what then?"

"Then, sir, to my old-fashioned ideas you would be a dishonourable fellow, to cast away the woman who has only you to look to in the world, that you may put another woman who has taken your fancy in her place."

Morris bit his lip.

"Still speaking on that supposition," he replied, "would it not be more dishonourable to marry her; would it not be kinder, shameful as it may be, to tell her all the truth and let her seek some worthier man?"

The Colonel shrugged his shoulders. "I can't split hairs," he said, "or enter on an argument of sentimental casuistry. But I tell you this, Morris, although you are my only son, and the last of our name, that rather than do such a thing, under all the circ.u.mstances, it would be better that you should take a pistol and blow your brains out."

"Very probably," answered Morris, "but would you mind telling me also what are the exact circ.u.mstances which would in your opinion so aggravate this particular case?"

"You have a copy of your uncle Porson's will in that drawer; give it me."

Morris obeyed, and his father searched for, and read the following sentence: "In consideration of the forthcoming marriage between his son Morris and my daughter Mary, the said testator remits all debts and obligations that may be due to his estate by the said Richard Monk, Lieutenant Colonel, Companion of the Bath, and an executor of this will."

"Well," said Morris.

"Well," replied the Colonel coolly, "those debts in all amounted to 19,543 pounds. No wonder you seem astonished, but they have been acc.u.mulating for a score of years. There's the fact, any way, so discussion is no use. Now do you understand? 'In consideration of the forthcoming marriage,' remember."

"I shall be rich some day; that machine you laugh at will make me rich; already I have been approached. I might repay this money."

"Yes, and you might not; such hopes and expectations have a way of coming to nothing. Besides, hang it all, Morris, you know that there is more than money in the question."

Morris hid his face in his hands for a moment; when he removed them it was ashen. "Yes," he said, "things are unfortunate. You remember that you were very anxious that I should engage myself, and Mary was so good as to accept me. Perhaps, I cannot say, I should have done better to have waited till I felt some real impulse towards marriage. However, that is all gone by, and, father, you need not be in the least afraid; there is not the slightest fear that I shall attempt to do anything of which you would disapprove."

"I was sure you wouldn't, old fellow," answered the Colonel in a friendly tone, "not when you came to think. Matters seem to have got into a bit of a tangle, don't they? Most unfortunate that charming young lady being brought to this house in such a fashion. Really, it looks like a spite of what she called Fate. However, I have no doubt that it will all straighten itself somehow. By the way, she told me that she should wish to see you once to say good-bye before she went. Don't be vexed with me if, should she do so, I suggest to you to be very careful.

Your position will be exceedingly painful and exceedingly dangerous, and in a moment all your fine resolutions may come to nothing; though I am sure that she does not wish any such thing, poor dear. Unless she really seeks this interview, I think, indeed, it would be best avoided."

Morris made no answer, and the Colonel went away somewhat weary and sorrowful. For once he had seen too much of his puppet-show.

CHAPTER XVI

A MARRIAGE AND AFTER

Stella did not appear at dinner that night, or at breakfast next day. In the course of the morning, growing impatient, for he had explanations to make, Morris sent her a note worded thus:

"Can I see you?--M. M."