The Mayor of Warwick Part 14

"What was it?" she asked, recovering herself with an effort. "Oh, yes.

I was about to suggest that your height marks you out as the proper person to hold up the hoops."

"Agreed!" he cried. "If you will stand by and hand them up."

This raillery was only a pa.s.sing incident, for Miss Wycliffe's mood had suffered a permanent eclipse. The bishop returned more reasonably and with perfect seriousness to the subject of the election, and finally launched upon a long diatribe after the Platonic fashion, with the professor as a sympathetic interlocutor. His daughter refrained from combatting him openly, but he divined and resented her unexpressed opposition. Her att.i.tude was one of finality; her silence indicated an indifference to his opinions more exasperating than words. It was the young astronomer, he reflected, who had helped to crystallise her strange views. His lurking fear that she might one day marry and leave him was aroused at the thought, and his heart contracted with jealousy.

She possessed in his eyes something of the sanct.i.ty of a vestal virgin, one who must not be profaned by marriage. In such an event, also, his cherished hope that she might complete the quadrangle of St. George's Hall was likely to be frustrated forever. These fears moved him to argue with a bitterness that served only to defeat his purpose the more.

Cardington's partic.i.p.ation displayed an animus which hitherto had been absent from his remarks upon the subject, as if the result of the election had stirred him deeply, also.

"I have heard," he remarked, "that Emmet would never have been elected if it had n't been for the support of Bat What's-his-name and the gang that makes his saloon a rendezvous."

Whether this insinuation produced some effect upon the maid, or whether the nervousness she had exhibited during the whole evening culminated coincidently, none present could know, but no sooner had the words left his lips than a finger-bowl which she held fell from her hands and broke in a hundred glittering fragments on the carpet. At this second proof of incompetence the bishop started irritably, and looked at her without a word. That look was sufficient. A professor unexpectedly roared out upon by his cla.s.s, a clergyman breaking down in a sermon, could scarcely have experienced a keener sense of professional failure and humiliation than the unfortunate girl knew at that moment. To the bishop's astonishment, she suddenly raised her ap.r.o.n to her eyes and burst into tears.

"That will do, Lena," Miss Wycliffe said quietly. "We 've had enough excitement for one evening. You may go; and send Mary in your place."

"What's the matter with the girl?" the bishop asked, when the door had closed behind her. There was an odd blending of annoyance and compa.s.sion in his tone.

"Lena hasn't been well," his daughter replied, "for some days."

"Then let her rest awhile," he said; "and call the doctor, if it's necessary." The incident seemed to distract him entirely from his previous thoughts. "It is just such a scene as this," he continued, "that reminds one of the hidden tragedies going on all the time in the lives about us. Lena is usually a very quiet and skilful girl, and it has been a pleasure to have her about. Perhaps she's going through some love affair, as big a thing in her existence as the chief events in ours are to us. Girls of that cla.s.s so often acquire a certain gentleness and breeding from a.s.sociation, and then marry some rough coal-heaver or mechanic. It's a pity--a great pity."

"She's pretty enough to meet a King Cophetua," Cardington remarked judicially.

The observation was directed at Miss Wycliffe, and was an effort to make her forget the conversation in which his animus had led him to transgress even his elastic limits with her. There was something almost comical in the concerned expression of his light blue eyes, no longer fierce, as he gazed at her. But she met this dumb appeal coldly.

"If you will excuse me, father," she said presently, "I 'll go up to Lena's room, and see whether she 's really ill."

The two men, left alone, drank their coffee, and then went into the bishop's study to smoke. As the door remained open, Cardington seated himself in a chair that commanded a vista of the drawing-room, and lingered on in the hope of Felicity's return, until the first lights of Emmet's triumphal procession began to flash past the windows from the street beyond.

"Here comes the Imperator up the Via Sacra!" he commented, rising. "I must go out and see whether he has a slave behind him to whisper in his ear, _Memento te hominem esse_."

But it would appear that his curiosity concerning the procession was short-lived, for when he reached the scene, he plunged contemptuously between the straggling columns, and gained the further curb. Then he turned down a side street, without one backward look, and took his way forlornly toward St. George's Hall.

The bishop, not sorry to be left to his meditations, had made no effort to detain his visitor. Now he extended his hand for another cigar, changed his mind, and sat thinking. Genuinely indifferent to the procession pa.s.sing by with torches and transparencies and bands of music, he remained with his back toward the windows, his head sunk upon his breast. He was steept in a depressing consciousness of having mismanaged the situation with his daughter, of having widened the breach he had meant to close. His tact had failed him because his affections and interests were too intimately concerned, much as a surgeon's hand might falter in an operation upon one of his own family.

What was the meaning of this strange interest which Felicity had taken in the career of a man normally beyond the radius of her acquaintance and sympathy? At first it had seemed a jest, then a sentimental charity maintained in foolish pride, but only recently had it created anything approaching estrangement between them. And this situation was the more difficult to bear because of their long intellectual and artistic companionship. She was more to him than a son, for he had a priestly appreciation of the subtlety of women. He had watched her mind unfold in foreign travel, little dreaming that this experience with him was sowing the seeds of discontent with her narrow environment which were now beginning to bear such bitter fruit. Something of a celibate by nature, he loved to think of her as an eternal priestess, who would consecrate herself and her fortune to the work of the Church.

Going back in his mind, he could date the acute stage of the present situation pretty accurately from the inception of her acquaintance with the young professor of mathematics. Leigh had disclosed a certain Western democracy that first evening, and had established immediately some sort of understanding with his hostess. The bishop had seen them together at Littleford's house, and had drawn his own conclusions.

Divination of the hidden interests and emotions of others was one of his gifts, a gift he had so fostered that sometimes his moves in the intricate game of life were like strokes of genius. He did not doubt now that Leigh was in love with his daughter, and for the first time he was seriously doubtful of her att.i.tude toward a young man. Proud and beautiful, she had always held herself aloof, with something of fine scorn, from the frock-coated, silk-hatted, conventional men of her acquaintance, as if she shared her father's opinion of her worth, as if she secretly sympathised with the plans she knew he cherished concerning the completion of the college quadrangle. Was she now to decline to the level of this fortune hunter, this crude young Westerner?

As for Cardington, of course he loved her, too; but the bishop knew her too well to suppose that the professor would ever captivate her imagination. He had always been within her horizon, and he served the useful purpose, from the bishop's point of view, of distracting her attention from more formidable aspirants.

That hour of reflection resulted in at least one definite resolve: Leigh's connection with the college should cease at the expiration of the year for which he was engaged. Meanwhile, the bishop might need a rest, and might take Felicity with him to Bermuda, leaving the affairs of the diocese in the hands of his coadjutor.

Having reached this conclusion, he became aware of the fact that the procession had long since pa.s.sed, that the house was very still, and that Felicity had evidently retired to her room for the night. He got up and walked aimlessly out into the drawing-room, where the lights were turned low. He listened at the foot of the stairs, and thought to call her, but the silence seemed ominous, and for some reason he forbore. Was she really so deeply hurt that she would not return and bid him good-night? They had never been demonstrative, but neither were such affectionate courtesies ever omitted between them. He could not seek her now and demand an explanation. From such a scene he shrank instinctively. To-morrow he would begin on a new tack. He would relegate this absurd difference of opinion between them to the obscure corner it deserved, where he trusted it would soon die of neglect. It was indeed fortunate for the bishop's rest that night that his conjecture concerning his daughter's state of mind fell so far short of the truth.

When Lena Harpster left the dining-room at her mistress's command, she was in a condition bordering upon hysteria. Her burst of tears expressed the culmination of a long strain. She had dared to disobey her lover, driven to desperation by the increasing importunities of the young man of the house in which she served, and had fled to Miss Wycliffe's as to a refuge. But her letter of explanation to Emmet had remained unanswered. Was it not her love for him that had driven her to disobey? She even refrained from signing her appeal for pardon, as a concession to his desire for secrecy. Either he was too much absorbed, or his wrath was implacable, and a fortnight had pa.s.sed without a sign. Would he seize this pretext, now that he had been elected mayor, to cast her off forever, as an impediment to his progress in the world? This doubt had so preyed upon her nerves that Miss Wycliffe was not far from the truth when she explained to her father that the maid was ill. But it was the vilification of her lover, to which she was forced to listen in silence, that had brought her emotions to a disastrous climax.

Once in her little room, she threw herself upon the bed and sobbed without restraint, but her abandonment to grief was short. She arose hastily and bathed her eyes in cold water, moved by the reflection that tears only served to mar her beauty, the sole dower she possessed.

There came into her mind also the sudden resolve to go out and see the parade. She would stand near one of the electric lights, and perhaps her lover would see her and give some sign, a smile, a wave of the hand, whose significance would be known to them alone.

Fired by new hope, she discarded her ap.r.o.n and cap and donned her prettiest skirt. Then, standing in front of her little mirror, she applied a dash of colour to her pale cheeks with a few deft touches, spreading it into an appearance of nature with a bit of chamois skin.

She opened the bureau drawer and threw a white silk waist upon the bed.

But now a perplexing question arose. Which riband should she wear about her throat? She selected two, and laid them before her for consideration. This one she wore when he first kissed her; but the new one was prettier. Which would he prefer? Or was it possible that he would not see her at all in the crowd? While these thoughts ran through her mind, she smoothed her eyebrows with her pink little thumb, and paused to reflect that she would like to have a tiny eyebrow brush with an ivory handle, such an one as she had seen among the toilet articles on her mistress's dressing-table. Then she glanced at the ring on her finger which Emmet had given her, and for a while she forgot everything else, fixed in contemplation.

The ring was one whose peculiar value Lena was far from realising: a Maltese cross of old gold, set with four uncut emeralds. Seen by gaslight the stones lacked brilliancy, and she thought the ring itself awkward and heavy. From the first she had regarded the gift superst.i.tiously, as if the dull green stones, like four dull eyes, emitted a baleful influence. It was significant of her utter lack of religious a.s.sociations that the cross itself suggested no counter charm. Had she been a Catholic, that shape alone would have made the ring a talisman, but her people were Congregationalists, to whom religious symbols were anathema, and she herself had seldom gone to church. In fact, Lena was vaguely disappointed in the ring, and even ashamed of it. If her lover were as rich as he said, why had he not bought her a diamond? But repentance followed hard upon this questioning. The ring was not what she desired, but it was a pledge of his love, and she raised it to her lips.

She was in this att.i.tude, her thin, white shoulders glimmering bare, a graceful and nymph-like figure, when a light tap at the door froze her into immobility, and then she saw her mistress's face reflected in the mirror. With a little cry of embarra.s.sment, she turned and leaned against the bureau, lifting one hand with that instinctive gesture which Greek sculptors have immortalised in many a lovely statue.

"I did n't mean to frighten you, Lena," Miss Wycliffe said quietly, when she had shut the door carefully behind her and taken a chair. "I thought you might be ill, and came to see whether I could do anything for you."

The words were kind, but there was something in the speaker's manner that was less a.s.suring. Her face was pale, and her eyes were bright, but not with compa.s.sion. Confronting each other thus, they presented a striking contrast. The mistress's dark, rich beauty made the other's prettiness seem ephemeral, without reducing it to the level of the commonplace; for Lena was not common as servants are, either in her personality or in the atmosphere she created in her room. Even her visitor, absorbed as she was in her own purpose, was not unconscious of the cleanliness of the place, of the artistic aspiration represented by the few prints on the walls.

"I did have a turn, Miss Wycliffe," Lena stammered, "but I feel better now. I thought, perhaps, if I went out to get the fresh air"--

"And saw the procession?" her mistress suggested, with a curious smile.

Lena nodded guiltily, and a flush quickly spread beyond the limits of colour which art had fixed in her cheeks.

"Perhaps that would do you good," Miss Wycliffe remarked. Then, with a penetrating regard, she added, "And I suspect you have a personal interest in the parade, Lena."

"I want to see Mr. Emmet," the girl confessed, as if she could not resist the inquisition of the stronger nature confronting her. But there was pride, too, as well as implication, in the admission.

"Perhaps it was Mr. Emmet who gave you that odd ring?" Miss Wycliffe continued relentlessly.

"Yes," in a voice that was almost a whisper.

"And you regard it as an engagement ring?"

"He did n't say so definitely, Miss Wycliffe. He told me not to wear it yet, and I did n't until tonight. And he made me promise not to tell--anything. You will keep my secret, Miss Wycliffe, until--until"--

"No, child, I won't tell, but I 'm sorry to say that I shall have to deprive you of the ring, as it happens to be one of my own. I noticed it on your hand at dinner, and while I was sorry to think of taking it back, I could n't help feeling that a fortunate chance had restored it to me."

Lena drooped pitifully, and her mistress deigned to explain further, though her tone was hard and cold.

"If the ring were of no special value, I shouldn't mind, but it belonged in the family, and I prized it highly. Undoubtedly I lost it in the car, where it was found by Mr. Emmet. Let me see it; I 'm sure I can't be mistaken."

She held out her hand imperiously, and resistance to her will was impossible. At that moment the head of the procession could be seen through the trees, and the sound of music floated up to the little room. Lena held the ring in the palm of her hand, forgetting that she had ever thought it less than beautiful, and her tears began to drop slowly. Then she surrendered it with an impulsive movement, like that of a conquered child. Her heart failed her. The necessity of giving up the ring seemed prophetic of the future; and moreover she was now too late to see him pa.s.s.

"Yes," Miss Wycliffe said coolly, "I was right. The cutting and arrangement of the stones is peculiar, and there's not another like it in Warwick." She arose to her feet, the ring gripped in her hand till the edge of the cross almost cut her tender palm. "And one thing more, Lena. I have a reason for asking it. Do you love Mr. Emmet?"

There was no need to answer, and indeed the girl could not utter a word, so intense was her misery, so overpowering her a.s.surance of impending disaster.

"And do you suppose he loves you, just because he has kissed you and given you this ring which he picked up in the car?"

There was still no answer, and the next words came like the voice of fate.

"Well, I feel it my duty to tell you that a man in his position can only be amusing himself when he pays attention to a girl in yours. You must have nothing more to do with him. It's better for you to know it now, and to have done with this infatuation, for I tell you plainly, he means nothing that an honest girl can accept."