A Pasteboard Crown Part 16

And Thrall commented: "Your lovers have cause for jealousy of that young sister, I fancy, Miss Lawton?"

But, with careless frankness, Sybil answered: "I never had a lover in my life! So Dorrie can have caused no jealousy, you see!" and turned her whole attention back to Nonna Angelique, who was checking off costumes on her fingers.

And she would have been an astonished girl had she been told that her brusquely spoken words had made this man's heart leap in his breast, as no seductive wile of most tactful coquetry could have done; and the fact that he had no right to heed the words of any maid, however sweet or fair, did nothing to check that hurried thumping at his ribs. For, like many other men, he had something of the explorer's spirit about him--something that responded eagerly to the charm of the strange, the vague, the new,--something that makes the would-be explorer of the terra incognita ignore all thought of danger, and dream only of the beauty of virgin forests, strange flowers, and fabled fountains of youth and love eternal! No one could have guessed that the calm-faced, stately gentleman, looking on at the selection of Juliet's finery, was mentally repeating those candid, girlish words: "I never had a lover in my life!"

"Ah, no!" he thought; "no more had Juliet ever had a lover in her life, up to an hour before that 'trifling, foolish banquet,' given by old Capulet. Yet, ere its end, swift love had grown so great that she had declared already for the grave, if 'twere a pa.s.sion unrequited!"

Then old Angelique broke in upon his thought, and claimed attention with: "The cloak, now, Mr. Thrall--the cloak for the visit to old Laurence's cell? Shall it be black or brown or gray?"

"Gray!" he answered, readily. "Dark gray, I think, gives a hint of mystery. Though, 'tis true, Juliet seeks the Friar with her parents'

knowledge, still it is with secret purpose. So gray and very large and full and hooded, Nonna Angelique, so that a young maid might slip like a shadow by high walls and through Verona's streets to the cloisters of the convent without revealing a trace of beauty or of rich attire."

"C'est bon! c'est bon!" nodded Lefebvre, taking a prodigious pinch of snuff, and entering in a greasy little note-book "One large, gray, circle cloak, hooded"--"c'est bon!"

On Angelique's four fingers her grimy thumb checked off "Cloak for Friar's cell--gray. Chamber scene--white, of course, but flowing, loose, long, light as air. For tomb--white also, but heavy, rich, eh? The satin gown for County Paris bride, and only one spot of color, eh? The jewelled sheath of the dagger, at the waist. Oh, yes! oh, yes! all that is clear, but--but, my Mr. Manager, how shall it be for the ball--for that first time to meet the Romeo--eh?"

She pursed her lips, she scratched her forehead thoughtfully, and so pushed her false front over to a most rakish angle. But the old man shuffled across the room, and with a: "Permettez that I correct the coiffure, my Angelique! It have slide, and it make a little of what you call the--the 'jaky' look! That way--so!" And with the palms of both hands he calmly replaced the foxy-red front, and the search for a color suitable for the first act went on.

Thrall, drawing his hand lightly across the loosened folds of many webs, over purples, mauves, ambers, with a snapping accompaniment of "No! no!

no!" paused, by merest chance, at a delicate blue brocade, at which Angelique almost shrieked: "No! no!--I say no! Pretty? Yes, mais too calm--cool--collected--obedient! Ah, bah! A fool color! What, that amber would become her? Hear you that, old man?" She appealed to Lefebvre with up-cast hands: "Y-es, and it would be Spanish in effect!

Oh, what _is_ it that we want?"

The old man squinted up his eyes, and, studying Sybil, answered: "Something happy, v-e-r-y happy! Something like a flower, a-a very early flower--but what?"

And Thrall, who had caught the old snuff-taker's idea, asked, quickly: "Why not the blossom of the peach? That's early!"

"G.o.d bless the man!" cried Nonna Angelique, throwing her arms about him in frantic demonstration of delight. "It is the coup-de-grace! The pinks, mon mari! vite! vite done! Vraiment you have the head still! A happy color, said you!"

She threw out a fold of satin her husband offered: "Non! non! it is too deep--too common!" Another: "Bah! too pale, but mere flesh color!" A beautiful bright pink brocade next was tried. "Oh, non! non!" she almost cried from disappointment; "too-'er, too-'er!" In despair she resorted to pantomime to help make her meaning clear, and, catching up her skimpy alpaca skirt, she danced a wild step or two, saying: "Too comme-ca! too what you call 'frisky,' eh? You feel me, what I mean? But that sweet, first flowering thing--that soft promise of the spring, that peach-blossom pink, that would make this dark girl beautiful--can I not find it, then?" She beat her breast with Gallic despair. Lefebvre clutched his few hairs, and apparently pulled up a memory, and cried: "One chance more! The old chest with Eastern things! India, China, j.a.pan!" He disappeared--he lost a shoe, but left it lying till he came back, and slid into it in pa.s.sing. Some rolls were cast down, soft, non-crackling paper removed, and, with cries of joy and gurgles of delight, Nonna Angelique flung out, fold upon fold, a silky crepe of so pure and true a peach-blossom pink that the petals of the flower itself scattered over it could hardly have been perceived.

Pearls with this color would be perfection. Then the round white fan, dagger,--everything ordered, the measures were taken in the inner room of shelves, a day fixed for fitting, and, quivering with excitement and delight, Sybil was descending the house-steps, when Jim Roberts came up to Thrall, and looking rather oddly at him--the girl thought--said: "The property-man says that cloisonne-jar you made such a fuss about was cared for by the Missus. So, if you want it used, give me her key!"

There was a sort of half-frightened daring in the pale face of Roberts, and the look of sardonic comprehension burning in Thrall's eyes might well have shaken the nerves of such a poor wreck as he answered: "We won't trouble about the cloisonne, just now; but I understand your good intention in following me here to tell me about it. And--I--shall-- remember--it! Oh, here's your car, Miss Lawton; good-by!"

CHAPTER XVIII

A LOVER'S PLEA

With all her gentleness, Dorothy Lawton was not without spirit, and she might have resented the unauthorized announcement made by Leslie Galt had she not been reduced to helpless terror by the prompt reappearance of William Henry Bulkley, pompously claiming the privilege of "restoring her to her home and her parents."

Trembling like a leaf, she lifted pleading eyes to Galt, who, reading with deep grat.i.tude their prayer, answered it by turning to the old beau, and coldly remarking that "the doctor had placed his carriage at Miss Lawton's service, and together they were about to escort her home."

"You will do nothing of the kind, sir!" bl.u.s.tered the bombastic William Henry. "This young lady was placed under my care. I have been made responsible for her safety; therefore, she will return home under my escort, sir!"

"Safety?" sneered Galt. "That word does not come gracefully from your lips! Safety? Your utter irresponsibility is amply ill.u.s.trated by the injuries Miss Lawton has received while under your thoughtful care!"

"Anyone," hotly interrupted Mr. Bulkley, "anyone may be the victim of an act of Providence, of--of a catastrophe!"

"Act of Providence!" cried Galt; "act of bad temper--act of stupid discourtesy! No man has the right to take a woman out behind a tricky horse, even when he exercises every caution in handling him! And no one but a madman or a man in an unspeakably bad temper would think of leaving a woman alone and utterly at the mercy of a shying, nervous brute! The wonder is that we have been spared a tragedy to-day! And this young lady can scarcely be blamed for not wis.h.i.+ng to trust herself to such doubtful protection again!"

"You will let the young lady speak for herself, you young upstart!"

answered the now furious Mr. Bulkley. "She will do well to remember she is still in tutelage to her parents, and that by a parent she was given to my care!" Then, turning to the girl, he went on: "I have obtained a buggy from the livery man, and we can start at once!"

"Oh, Mr. Bulkley," quavered Dorothy, "I can't! I am afraid of that horse! Please--please don't ask me to ride behind him again!"

She trembled so violently that the doctor interposed, saying, curtly: "I must disallow your claim, sir! My patient's nerves are to be considered, and, really, though you were acting as the young lady's escort for this unfortunate drive, it seems to me her fiance is the proper person to look after her now!"

William Henry Bulkley's eyes stood out like a crab's. His red face purpled. He breathed in loud gasps. "Her--her what?" he exclaimed. "Her fiance! Who the devil are you talking about? She has no fiance!"

The doctor had raised Dorothy and given her his arm, but now he turned in astonishment from the white, set face of Galt to the red fury of Bulkley, and back again. When, with a little tremulous laugh, Dorothy, with surprised blue eyes, said: "Why, Mr. Bulkley, were you not told, then? Now, had you been a woman," she held out her hand, the third finger all brave with flas.h.i.+ng solitaire, "you would not have needed telling. See?"

And Leslie, bending to draw down her veil and hide the wounded cheek, whispered: "Ah! my love! my love!"

And then they were in the doctor's carriage and on the way to Woodsedge, while William Henry Bulkley, in a black devil's rage, followed.

John Lawton had returned from his walk, and, as a hen-mother frets over her ducklings in the water, so he fretted over the absence of both his girls. He wandered aimlessly about, instead of piling up the wood in the shed, as he had intended doing, while the lengthening absence of Dorothy filled Mrs. Lawton with secret satisfaction. They were taking a drive, just as she had intended they should, and Mr. Bulkley was undoubtedly making the most of his opportunity. She hoped he might not make the mistake of being too--too impulsively ardent. "Very young girls sometimes take alarm so easily!" she thought. "And Dorrie is the merest baby in such matters!"

And then confusion reigned, when, with helpless arm, bruised, cut face, and yet such curiously s.h.i.+ning eyes, Dorothy, who had gone forth with Mr. Bulkley, was a.s.sisted into the house by a strange doctor and young Galt. Then came tender greetings, hurried footsteps, and curt explanations. The doctor, aided by the temporarily German-speaking Lena, whose fright had strangled English in her very throat, was attending the injured girl in her own room. Let.i.tia was weeping hysterically, and John Lawton, the father, was struggling hard to maintain the composure expected of Mr. Lawton, the man. For the calm indifference of a doctor's att.i.tude toward a simple fracture, especially when young bones are in question, is rarely emulated by anxious relatives. Even within the ordinary family circle a broken limb is regarded as a serious mishap; but in this abode of genteel poverty, where yet there was such wealth of family love, a daughter's broken arm was a terrifying disaster, a grievous catastrophe.

Mrs. Lawton was piteously inquiring of heaven, which she seemingly located in the far corner of the ceiling, near the biggest stain: "Why had she permitted Sybil to leave her alone, to face the contretemps that was sure to occur in her most desolate hour?" ignoring the fact that her "desolate hour" had been carefully contrived by herself.

Galt, catching sight of Mr. Lawton, went to him, and, taking his arm, led him out across the porch and drive down to the great old willow, whose mighty drooping made a gray green tent of privacy. Then he seated him, and, taking off his own hat, he stood before the older man, who, though looking at him with anxious eyes, yet noted the erect figure, the clear gaze, and rather stern, well-featured face, and thought him a goodly sight.

A moment of silence, then Leslie said, slowly: "Mr. Lawton, you have shown me great kindness, and I----"

The old man held up his hand, saying, with quick deprecation: "No! no!

Without power, one can show kindness to no man! I like you, my lad! I shall be grateful to you all my life, but I have done you no kindness!"

Leslie moistened his lips as might a nervous girl: "I--you--" he stammered, then went on eagerly--"How well do you like me, sir? Well enough to trust me with--oh, good G.o.d!" he cried, "what's the use of beating about the bush? If you don't know it already, you ought to know that I love your daughter with all my heart, and--don't look at me like that, Mr. Lawton! I know I don't deserve her! But--I'd be true to her, as my father was true to his choice before me! If--if Dorothy tells you that she wishes it so, will you then give her to me, for my wife?"

Two slow tears crept into the pale blue eyes. Again there came that piteous, silent movement of the lips, that had so touched Leslie on the day he had rescued the girls from the tunnel accident.

"What is it?" asked Galt, gently. "You know who I am--who my father was.

You know personally one, at least, of the firm of Gordon, Stone & Wheatleigh, in whose offices I have read and worked, and who have promised--but never mind that now. What troubles you so, sir? My past is an open book for you. Is it a question of age?"

John Lawton shook his head, and just then Mr. Bulkley drove through the farthest gate and on up to the house.

They paid no heed to that; Galt went on questioning the silent, distressed, old man: "Is it that you cannot trust me--that you doubt the sincerity of my love?" A faint, reproachful smile accompanied a second shake of the head.

"Is it----" started Leslie.

"It's poverty!" gasped John Lawton. Then, having regained his power of speech, he went on: "Don't ask me to condemn my girl to poverty for life. Love sweetens the draught, but the bitterness is there all the time! Wait, my boy, wait! It is not for her alone I speak! Spare yourself the torment, the shame, the pain of denying to the woman that you love the little fripperies and follies and small luxuries that she craves as a flower craves suns.h.i.+ne! There's no pain like it in the world! And," his lips writhed as he spoke, "I ought to know, for--for ten years past it has so pierced my heart that there can be but a shapeless pulp there now! No! no! you can't afford to marry my daughter!"

"It's hard to think of you as a lover of mammon--a seeker after mere wealth!" frowned Leslie.