Honor Edgeworth; Or, Ottawa's Present Tense Part 21

"Philip, my son, what do you see there?"

"Where?" the other asked indifferently.

"Inside those twisted trees."

Philip glanced in the direction indicated, and in an instant was dismounted. He gave the reins to his companion and walked briskly to the spot that had excited their attention. When he reached the place he halted suddenly and looked aghast. An exclamation of horror escaped his lips. He bent over the object and beheld the figure of a human being, clad in female attire, sleeping on the crouched body of a great Newfoundland dog. But the arms and fingers that encircled and clutched the faithful animal were daubed with blood, and here and there on the fretful face of the sleeper were dried patches of crimson. The matted hair fell loosely round the regular features, but the picture on the whole was at once the strangest and most touching one it was possible to see. Philip turned silently and beckoned his companion to approach. Then both of them bent curiously over the form of the girl to ascertain whether she slept a temporary or an eternal sleep, and when her distinct breathing convinced them that life was not extinct, they called her and tried to awaken her. For a long time their efforts were vain. Nothing seemed capable of dispelling the stupor that had settled over her. She only tossed her head wearily from one side to the other when they spoke, and frowned peevishly, as though their words annoyed her. Once she raised her blood-stained hand and the two men saw with renewed surprise that she wore a wedding ring on her slender finger. This touched them anew, and they resolved to move her between them to the village, where a doctor could be consulted and her wants be carefully attended to.

But when they laid their hands upon her the dog showed his teeth threateningly, growling angrily in their faces. At the sound of her defender's voice, the girl lifted her eyelids and glared wildy at the two figures standing above her. She tightened her greedy hold around the animal's neck and screamed:

"Don't touch him, don't dare--he--and my revenge--all that's left--revenge! Ha, ha, ha.--"

Her voice died out and her eyes closed drowsily again. The two men stared at one another in mute surprise. Then the younger of the two, making a last effort, bent over her and said coaxingly:

"Let me take you off the damp ground, you'll have your death of cold,"

She started and looked strangely at him.

"Not death," she said in a tone of defiance, "not death until I have done my work."

"Tell us your name, good woman," the older man put in, not heeding her last remark.

"Name? I have no name now--outcast--_jolle_-if you like. But I will win my name back, I will--"

"Of course you will," sad one consolingly, looking at his companion and tapping his forehead knowingly.

"Come, we will begin right away; let us go now," and he raised himself up to start.

With a little coaxing and rea.s.surance, they persuaded her to lean on them and rise up, but the poor little face became distorted and the eyes closed languidly as if she suffered intensely. She stood bravely up however, but in a moment she tottered and sank back again. Her companions saw that their efforts were useless in her present condition, so it was decided that while the elder man remained to watch her, the younger one should gallop to the village and secure the a.s.sistance necessary to transport her from this lonely spot.

Unfortunately the path chosen by Bijou on the night of her elopement with him, led to a succession of roads which wound almost interminably through woods and fields adjoining another village, situated some miles distant from the one they had left. This settlement was called "The Lower Farms." It was to this place that Philip Campbell and his uncle Douglas were travelling on that morning when they found Fifine in the wood. Bijou had made a very round-about trip, bringing the girl at least twenty miles from her own neighborhood, and leaving her in a spot where, if found, she would be looked upon as a resident of the Lower Farms.

With all possible speed, Philip Campbell rode into the village, going straight to the doctor of the place, to whom he confided their strange _rencontre_. Half an hour later, the zealous man of medicine with his attendant and Phil, were journeying back to the spot where Douglas Campbell kept kindly watch over the unfortunate female.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"Jukes and earls, and diamonds and pearls And pretty girls was spoorting there.

And some beside (the rogues) I spied, Behind the winches coorting there."

--Thackeray.

"This is our waltz, Miss Edgeworth, are you prepared?" asked Vivian Standish, as he bowed before the girl in black satin, who was conversing gayly with a fine-looking elderly gentleman.

"So soon," Honor said, somewhat surprised, "why, I thought--"

"Yes, I know you did," he interrupted gayly, "but do listen to that music."

Honor rose, thus appealed to, and smiling an adieu to her first companion, she thrust her round white arm into Vivian's, as he led her triumphantly into the ball-room, where many couples were already on the floor.

"See, we have lost some of it already," he exclaimed, putting his arm around her slender waist. They had to wait another minute thus, to allow more formidable couples to move past them, recruits in "the terpsich.o.r.ean art" who were ploughing their ways agonizingly through the crowd, leading their warm fat partners on the laces and frills of other ladies' dresses. As Honor and Vivian joined the moving ma.s.s, they attracted many admiring glances. They were well matched in size, both good-looking, and remarkably fine dancers, and as they glided here and there many criticizing whispers followed them.

Little Miss McCable, who has the reputation of being one of Ottawa's best dancers, bites her lower lips sarcastically, as an admirer of Miss Edgeworth's asks her, "does she not find her dancing faultless," and declares she "kaunt see what there is so striking about her."

But heedless of those who surround them, Vivian leads his fair partner through the crowd, as the strains of waltzes picked from "Olivette" and "Patience," flood the ball-room. Any girl may boast of being free from susceptibilities of a disastrous kind, but few girls _a la mode_ to-day can overcome the resistless fascination of a dreamy waltz, and Honor Edgeworth who was the very poetry of motion in herself, was lost to everything else but her waltz at this moment--how well Vivian Standish guided, she thought--how well he held himself! how _distingue_ he looked!

He had begun to puzzle her a little, and though she certainly did not like him, there was a sort of strange attraction for her in his voice, appearance and manner. I wonder if men can know what there is in a voice?

It is a precious talisman that serves at all times, and the one infallible means a man has to find his way to a woman's heart, for a woman never forgets the pathos, and sweetness of a voice that has called her "his own."

Vivian Standish had a voice to covet and to envy, he said the most matter-of-fact thing in a way that captivated the most careless listener, and the girls declared that when he spoke to them they were "perfectly distracted." Ottawa is the most interesting spot on earth for a person of any extraordinary ability to gain notoriety. If it is a girl the male element is effervescing all at once, men fall in love with her in turns, she is almost devoured with attention at evening parties, and visits all the suggestive nooks, and sits on the stairs with the handsomest and toniest of Ottawa's "big boys;" even married men get the craze, for Ottawa boasts of quite a little circle of benedicts, who are not slaves to petty prejudices inflicted as a rule on the married, and though not open advocates of "Free Love," they take all the privileges that hang around the border limit, for they do not doubt, but that any one might know when they are seen escorting pretty flirts, riding, driving, or walking through such delightful walks as "Beechwood," or "Richmond Road," that the topic of conversation is painfully appropriate to their vocations, and as a proof if any one were to join them, at the moment, they would be either admiring nature or art, or anything in fact but each other.

It makes as much difference in Ottawa as well as elsewhere, whether a young lady be only an instructress of music, but exceedingly pretty, or the daughter of a cabinet minister with a homely face and awkward gait.

A man is a man in spite of society's most binding laws; but circ.u.mstances are so delightfully blended when a girl is rich, good-looking, clever--and disengaged, it is the chance of a lifetime, and were it not that such "chances" as these, usurp the opportunites of Ottawa's patient and less endowed girls, there would be fewer of these old young ladies, who haunt the drawing rooms and public b.a.l.l.s of our city, year after year with the same result. Two or three years ought to satisfy any girl of ordinary ambition, and yet there are tireless maidens who only remain in their ninth or tenth winter, because of some petty const.i.tutional ailing, that makes a better excuse than saying, "there's no use trying any more, I'm a year older this year and have less chance," and so they begin to settle into a sound resignation, and snub the more presentable daughters of social inferiors; they either turn into first-cla.s.s Sunday school teachers, and denounce the pomps of a world whose excess has brought them to solitary womanhood, or they make unrivalled depositaries and disseminators of the local news of their little sphere, but they are as admirable an invention as any other, as they have many hours of leisure to engage in charitable and other occupations. There are plenty of these amiable "everlastings" at Mr. Bellemare's to-night, some of them apparently much appreciated, for while their homely, ungainly figures are whirled around the room on the arm of some calculating youth, fresh blooming girls must bite the ends of their feathery fans in a pa.s.sion of disappointment, as they stand against the wall, or admire the pictures or statuary, or it does not matter what, so long as they need not look straight into the fun they cannot share. What a glorious epoch of womanly dignity, independence and worthiness! It is a picture one likes to draw for the contemplative admirers of the age.

A girl who makes up her mind to "go out" after leaving school, is I think, the most foolish and wretched girl under the sun, unless her parents or other relations have either a political, social or money influence to strengthen her, for many a daughter looks regretfully back upon the foolish steps which led her by contact into a world of fas.h.i.+on and flummery.

The exquisite ball-dress came home one night with the little paper from "Cheapside," or the "Argyle House," bearing its value represented in high numbers; a big account was opened in those dangerous books, a necessary affliction nevertheless, where the daughters will be "fas.h.i.+onable" and persist in having the same indulgences as the daughters of those who have less manners by far, but who can subst.i.tute good breeding easily by an abundance of "filthy lucre." In a ball-room, she is alone in a mult.i.tude, most often wis.h.i.+ng heartily she were rolled comfortably in the blankets of her cosy bed, she may be a nice girl, men admire her as a rule, but men are too dependent in Ottawa to declare their opinions openly, when they thereby tread upon society's corns.

Although this is naturally a democratic country, social ostracism is not unknown amongst us. The daughter of any one who "keeps a window," or is at all engaged in trade, is as effectually excluded from society as if she were a moral leper, and although her attainments, intellectually and otherwise, be far superior to those of her more favored sister, (who is very frequently both stupid and uninteresting), her chances of an invitation are small indeed, until her father is in a position to head a subscription list or an election fund, and then, presto! all the insuperable difficulties that previously existed, magically disappear.

The brainless families of representative men, must of course monopolise attention, if all the rest went to eternal perdition, and what does it matter how vexedly a fellow tugs his moustache over the insipid drawl of some "powerful" man's daughter, while he eyes most enviously the form of her less safely established sister, and wishes to--he was some other fellow, and not himself.

Honor Edgeworth, strange to say, beautiful, and courted though she was in Ottawa, failed to catch any sweetness therein. While such a thing was new, it amused her, but already the shallow novelty had worn off, and it had become monotonous. Perhaps, if things were different, she could have entered with more relish into her world of gay distractions, but she knew, beforehand, that there are voids and vacancies in the heart, that can never be filled by the trivial pleasures of high life. When the eye has begun to scan the world for a particular face and form that it loves to look upon, it instinctively shuns both crowded rooms and festive halls.

This was why Honor looked so indifferent to the sensation she created this evening at the Bellemare's, gliding through the ball-room on the arm of the handsomest man present, but for all that her mind was not lazy, she was thinking deeply enough the while, leaning on the stalwart shoulder of Vivian Standish, drinking in the suggestive strains of the music to which they danced. Honor was also yielding to the influence of memory that had been awakened within her, that memory that pensively turned backwards the unforgotten pages of her past, filling her with a sad discontent, that soon betrayed itself in the wearied expression of impatience which stole into her eyes and over her whole face, and while so many girls around her, could have hated her for her luck, she sighed heavily under her rich brocades, and whispered to herself, "others look so completely happy, why need things be so different with me?"

Presently the arm that encircled her slender waist released its pressure, and a sad earnest voice, said in a half anxious tone, into the pretty pink ear:

"Why do you look so worried and fretful, are you tired?"

"No--yes--a little," she answered wearily.

"Let me get you some refreshment," was the solicitous rejoinder. "Come in here, Miss Edgeworth, see how cosy and appropriate it looks."

Mechanically she yielded, and on the arm of her admirer pa.s.sed into a spot which was a veritable artificial summer. It may not seem consistent with the rest of Honor Edgeworth's character, to say that, though defiant and independent, with regard to every other influence in life, she found herself unable to battle against the strange and unpleasant feeling, that invariably filled her in the company of this man.

She had read and heard of "will power," and of the strength of the moral character a.s.serting itself, despite the most gigantic efforts on the part of the victim, and though she was not inclined to raise this petty instance to the dignity of such wonderful manifestations, it yet savored of mystery to her, and thrust a repulsive consciousness of her own moral weakness upon her.

She was a "good girl," in the broadest sense; there was no nest of social vices inside that fair, honest face; the diplomacy and duplicity of fas.h.i.+on were unknown to her guileless heart, she was solid worth in every way, even while she sat under the broad leaves of rare branches, toying with her silver spoon, and listening to the earnest voice beside her. The wavy, chestnut braids that bound her shapely head, were natures own great gift to her, and had never been stowed away in idleness during the hours of her _deshabille_: the little tide of pink that ebbed and flowed over her fair face had never lain condensed within box or bottle upon her dressing-table, her face and form in all their loveliness were genuine, the double row of white even teeth, that gave a great charm to her pretty mouth, had never dreamed their early days away in dental show-cases, nor bathed all night by a toothless maiden's bed-side in a gla.s.s of water; much less did she ever tempt herself to encourage the authors of those wonderful advertis.e.m.e.nts that grace our daily papers, and which introduce to the world, renowned dimple makers, nose refiners, and other improvers of personal deficiencies.

It was perhaps the freshness of her beauty and the originally of her manner, that attracted her many satellites around her.

Lady Fullerton asks, "Is not beauty power?" and should I undertake to interpret the answer of the mult.i.tude I could but say--"it is."

There was not one in creation who knew better how to wield his weapons than did Vivian Standish. Many a time he had smiled inwardly at seeing the fruitless struggles of his victims to appear unmoved by his winning ways, but now, for once, he was balancing his precious judgment on a doubt. He was not too sure, but that this frank, clear, virtuous girl could read him through. Sometimes he felt uncomfortable. Just now, he felt as dogged as any ambitious school-boy ever did over an obstinate theorem in Euclid--here was a problem--there were all the rules for its clear solution, yet the answer never would come right. Perhaps he was preparing for another attempt, as he drew his chair closer to her and looked into her face, while they sat in the spot of all spots, the most flattering to his designs.

She greeted this new movement with a look of sudden surprise, but, unheeding, he bent over her slightly and said in his same provokingly sweet way: