Her Mother's Secret Part 10

This was not the first occasion on which the unhappy lady had felt herself obliged to resort to deadening drugs to enable her to bear the presence of Angus Anglesea in the house.

Then she locked her medicine chest, and went down to the sitting room, and, calling a servant, said:

"Watch for Miss Odalite. She is out walking. As soon as she returns ask her to come immediately to me."

"Miss Odalite is comin', ma'am. I seen her just now a-comin' froo de souf gate," replied the negro boy.

"Then go and meet her, and ask her to come to me."

"Yes, ma'am," replied the boy, darting out to do his errand.

In a few moments Odalite came in, looking anxiously at her mother.

"You sent for me, mamma. You are not well. Have you a headache?" she inquired, tenderly.

"No, darling, a heartache, rather. Lay off your bonnet and coat, Odalite, and come here and sit beside me on this sofa."

Odalite obeyed, still full of vague forebodings.

"I hear, my love," said the lady, putting her arm around the girl's slight waist, as they sat together, "that a great honor has been offered you this morning."

Odalite looked up, uneasily.

"Do you understand me, darling?" the lady inquired, gently pressing the form of her child, and gazing fondly in her face.

"I--I--think I know what you allude to, mamma; but--I did not consider it an honor," faltered the girl, dropping her eyes.

"Col. Anglesea has offered you his hand. Is it not so?"

"Yes, mamma."

"Col. Anglesea is a gentleman of the highest social position. I congratulate you, my darling."

"But, mother! mother!" Odalite exclaimed in alarm. "I have declined Col.

Anglesea's offer!"

"Have you, my dear? Then you acted very hastily and inconsiderately. You will think better of it and accept it," said the lady, very gravely.

"Oh, no, no, mamma! Never! never! How could I think of doing such a thing, when I am on the very eve of marriage with Le?"

"My daughter, you were too hasty in that matter also. That childish engagement--which was no binding one, after all--need not and must not prevent your forming a more desirable union with Col. Anglesea," urged the lady, almost in the very words used by the colonel himself when pressing his suit with Odalite.

"Oh, mother! mother! surely you do not advocate----Oh, mother! mother!

Spare me! Do not urge me into such a dreadful act!" exclaimed the girl, starting up in a wild excitement.

"Sit down and calm yourself, my dear child, and listen to me."

Odalite threw herself on the sofa, and buried her face in its cus.h.i.+ons.

"Col. Anglesea belongs to one of the n.o.blest families in the north of England," continued the lady. "He is a neighbor and friend of my father.

He can give you a high position among the landed gentry of England."

"But, oh, mother! dear mother! dear mother! I do not want a high position anywhere! and especially in a foreign country, where I should be separated from you and father and my little sisters!" sobbed the girl, with her face down in the cus.h.i.+ons.

"But, my dear, you are very young, and you do not know what is good for you. I, your mother, so much older, so much more experienced, surely do know what is best for your happiness. And, Odalite, I have set my heart on your marriage with this gentleman. If you should persist in your rejection of his suit I should be more than disappointed; I should be deeply grieved; yes, grieved beyond measure, Odalite."

This, and much more to the same purpose, was strongly and persistently urged by the mother, until Odalite, frightened, distressed and overwhelmed by her vehemence, earnestness and persistence, fell half conquered at the lady's feet, with the cry that opened this story:

"Mother! oh, mother! it will break my heart!"

Yet not for that would the lady yield. And not for that did she pause. But after more caressings, more persuasion, and more arguments--seeing that nothing less than the knowledge of the dread secret which had blighted her own bright youth could ever win Odalite to consent to the only sacrifice through which that secret would be kept--the mother, as has been already told, drew her daughter off to the seclusion of her own bedchamber, where they remained shut up for two hours.

At the end of that time Odalite came out alone, looking, oh! so changed, as if the bright and blooming girl of sixteen had suddenly become a sad and weary woman.

With her face pale and drawn, her forehead puckered into painful furrows, her eyes red and sunken, her lips shrunken down at the corners, her head bent, her form bowed, her steps feeble, she went like a woman walking in her sleep, straight down the stairs, down the hall and through the front door to the piazza, where she found Col. Anglesea walking slowly up and down the floor and smoking.

At her approach he threw away his cigar and turned to meet her, eager expectation on his face.

She went and stood before him, and said, with a strange, cold steadiness:

"Col. Anglesea, I have come to tell you that you may go to my father and ask his permission for you to marry me. You may also say to him, from me, that I hope he will give his consent, because--it will be a fiendish falsehood; but never mind that; you can tell it--because the marriage will secure my happiness."

CHAPTER IX

SUITOR AND FATHER

When Odalite had signified her acceptance of the suit of Anglesea, although she had expressed herself in not too flattering language, the gallant colonel would have a.s.sumed the role of a favored lover and advanced to embrace her; but she lifted both hands and turned away her head with a look of repulsion calculated to cool the ardor of the warmest suitor, as she cried, sternly:

"Stand back! Do not dare to lay a finger on me! I do not belong to you! I am not yet your property! You are not my owner! You have not received my father's permission to take possession of me! Go to him and tell him the falsehood you first suggested! Oh! how I hate you!"

And pale and cold and hard as she always was in his presence, with a loathing that was too deep for flush of cheek or flash of eye, she turned and re-entered the house.

He looked after her with a perfectly demoniacal expression of mingled longing and malignity, muttering:

"Oh, very well, my lady! It is your day now! But it will be mine soon! And then I shall know how to reduce you to submission."

He took another cigar from his pocket case, lighted it and recommenced his slow walk up and down the porch, smoking as before.

So far his plan had succeeded. The mother's consent to his marriage with the heiress had been wrung from her through her fears for her husband. The daughter's consent had been wheedled from her through her love for her mother. These certainly seemed the most important steps toward ultimate triumph. But yet there remained the father's consent to be obtained. And this, which at first seemed of little moment, now grew into something of grave consideration.

To be sure, he could easily go to Mr. Force and tell him that he loved his daughter, and that he wished to marry her; also that he had been so fortunate as to win such an interest in her heart as to make this marriage a matter in which her life's happiness was concerned.

He could say all this and more, without troubling himself about its truthfulness; and so far, well.