Gladys, the Reaper Part 63

Another knock at the door.

'Come in! What do you want?' she exclaimed in a suppressed voice.

'My master says the carriage is ready, and he thinks you had better go, ma'am. Colonel Vaughan has just come in. The heat has made his nose bleed so violently that he cannot be ready for dinner, but will be at Pentre for the ball, ma'am, my master says.'

'Very well; I shall be ready in a few moments.'

Freda rose from her chair, and went to her dressing-table. There was a bottle of eau-de-cologne on it. She poured out nearly half a wine-gla.s.sful, added water, and drank the dose. Then she dashed a quant.i.ty over her forehead; wetted her handkerchief with more, and having nearly exhausted the bottle, prepared to leave the room. Suddenly she stopped, exclaiming,--

'I cannot go! I feel as if I must faint; yet I must see the farce played out.'

A bitter smile, almost ghastly, pa.s.sed over her face, as she muttered these words. She took up a splendid bouquet of greenhouse flowers that had been prepared for her, and were placed on the table, almost mechanically, and looking like one in a dream, left the room.

'It is half-past six, Freda,' said Mr Gwynne in the loudest tone of which his voice was capable, as he descended the stairs.

The servants remarked to one another how very ill Miss Gwynne was looking, but her father did not perceive it. He was talking of Colonel Vaughan.

'So provoking of Vaughan, to go and tire himself in the heat, and make his nose bleed, and all that sort of thing.'

Freda did not answer. Her thoughts were running wild--here, there, and everywhere. One moment, she believed that Gladys had been romancing for some purpose of her own; the next, that all she said was true. Then she felt sure that Colonel Vaughan must really love Gladys, and must mean all that he said; and a cold shudder crept over her, as she became aware how much she loved him. Again, she knew that a man of his position could only be trifling with a girl in her's, and was ready to hate and despise one who could be so vile. As she thought and thought, she grew paler and paler--colder and colder; and when she entered Lady Mary Nugent's drawing-room, that lady said,--

'My dear Freda, what is the matter? You look so ill, and feel so cold.'

'Nothing but the heat. It always has this enervating effect on me,' was the answer.

The absence of Colonel Vaughan set the shrewd Lady Mary guessing as to the real cause of the sudden indisposition; she felt sure that something must have pa.s.sed between him and Freda more exciting than usual to occasion such paleness.

At dinner, Freda was fortunate in being placed next Sir Hugh Pryse, who knew her too well, and was far too fond of her, to make any personal remarks.

Miss Nugent's uncle, Lord Nugent, was the master of the ceremonies for the evening. He had come, as Miss Nugent's guardian, to resign his office, and to be present at her attaining her majority. Freda had once met him before, and liked him. He was now particularly friendly in his manner to her, but when he spoke to her across one intermediate person, she could only answer him in monosyllables. Every one silently remarked her absence of mind and unusual frigidity.

When the dinner was over, of which Freda only remembered that she had had certain viands placed before her, and when the ladies were leaving the dining-room, Colonel Vaughan's voice was heard in the hall. Lady Mary told a servant to show him into the dining-room; and as Freda was crossing the hall, she saw him at the opposite end of it. She hurried into the drawing-room, but was keenly alive to what pa.s.sed in the hall after she had done so. She heard him, with his usual courtly manner, apologise to Lady Mary Nugent for his non-appearance at the dinner-table, and attribute his accident to his having stood so long on her lawn, in the heat, watching the poor people at their dinner. He added that he was glad to have arrived in time to drink Miss Nugent's health, and proceeded to the dining-room.

Freda did her best to talk to the few, and very select, ladies, who had been honoured by an invitation to dinner; and felt intense relief when, one after another, all the evening-party arrived.

Dancing soon began, and Freda saw Colonel Vaughan and Miss Nugent together in a quadrille. Sir Hugh had asked her to dance with him, but she begged him to let her sit down that first dance, and promised him the next.

Of course she watched the pair in whom she was most interested. She was obliged to confess that Miss Nugent was the handsomest, most elegant, and best dressed girl in the room; as she talked to Colonel Vaughan, she looked almost animated; and he, on his part, seemed as gay and perfectly at his ease, as if there had never been a Gladys in the world. They were, unquestionably a fine, aristocratic couple; danced well, walked well, and to all appearance were well pleased with one another. Lady Mary Nugent watched them quite as narrowly as Freda.

Sick at heart, Freda danced the next dance with Sir Hugh, and managed to avoid coming in contact with Colonel Vaughan, who had secured Lady Mary as his partner. Once or twice, however, Freda caught his keen, searching glance fixed upon her, and knew that he was trying to read her mind, as he had often done before.

It was useless for her to try to avoid him, as he came direct to her to ask her for the next dance. She longed to say that she would never dance with him again, but even she had tact enough to know that it would not do to refuse, for the sake of the effect such a refusal might have both on him and the world. All she could do, however, was to bow her consent, take his arm, and walk, pale, silent, and stately, to the top of a quadrille. They had met Sir Hugh and Miss Nugent, and Colonel Vaughan had secured them as _vis-a-vis_; for once his tact had failed him, he could not have managed worse.

Freda tried to answer his questions, but in vain; she could not be hypocrite enough to treat him as she was accustomed to do. In him there was no perceptible change; she once fancied she perceived an uneasy expression in his face, as he looked at her, but his manner was friendly, lively, fascinating as ever; he even asked her what was the matter, and said she looked ill. Her answer was contained in the few sarcastic words,--

'The heat. I hear you have suffered from it also.'

Although Freda could not, herself, enter into the conversation she could observe the by-play between the colonel and Miss Nugent; the bashful, simpering smiles of the young lady, the flattering glances of the gentleman. She would not have believed, when she awoke that morning, that it was possible to endure so much real suffering as she was enduring, in the short s.p.a.ce of one quadrille.

It was over at last, and Colonel Vaughan led her to a seat amongst some ladies. She said she would go to her father, when she saw that he was going to sit down by her side. He offered her his arm again, and took her to the drawing-room; here she found her father, somewhat apart from the rest of the company, talking to Lady Mary, or more properly being talked to by her. She sat down on a sofa near her father, and bowing statelily to Colonel Vaughan, said,--

'I will not detain you. I shall remain here for the present.'

He made some pa.s.sing observation to Mr Gwynne, and returned to the drawing-room, followed shortly after by Lady Mary.

Sir Hugh came up and began talking to Freda; he was so kind and so natural even in his loudness, that Freda felt as if she would rather trust him with every secret of her heart, than the polished worldling who had just left her.

'And yet, perhaps,' she thought, 'Gladys has really deceived me, and he is innocent; still, better Gladys than that statue-like Miss Nugent.'

Freda thought the night would never end; she exerted herself to talk and dance, because every one came to ask what was the matter with her, and by the time they went to supper, she was as flushed as she had previously been pale. Lord Nugent was particularly attentive to her, and evidently admired her very much; bitterly she thought that she could gain, unsought, the civilities of one man, whilst she was but too conscious that the one she cared the most for in the world, was devoting himself almost exclusively to the Nugents. But he was unworthy of the heart of any right-minded woman, so she would tear him from hers, and again make her father her first care.

But those despicable Nugents had got possession of him also. He was seated next to Lady Mary at supper, her profile and diamonds were directed at him, and she looked almost as young, and quite as handsome as her daughter. Alas! and again alas! poor Freda!

However, all things come to an end, and an heiress's twenty-first birthday amongst them. Miss Nugent's did not finish till three o'clock in the morning, at which hour, Mr and Miss Gwynne and Colonel Vaughan were driving home from the festivities at Pentre. The gentlemen were keeping up a rather lively conversation on the events of the evening, and the lady was sustaining a very strong conflict with her own pride.

As the carriage rolled past a certain large oak tree in the Park, Freda suddenly remembered Rowland Prothero. About a twelvemonth ago she had left him beneath that oak, humbled and deeply pained, doubtless, by her haughty words. Now she was similarly pained and humbled, and she was, for the first time, aware of the shock her proud refusal of his love must have been to him. Had she not been weak enough to yield her heart unasked, and was it not almost thrown back into her own bosom? She, who had believed herself above the silly romance of her s.e.x, to have sunk below even Miss Nugent. But she would rouse herself from such a mania, and show Colonel Vaughan how thoroughly she despised him.

She did rouse herself, and the first words she heard were,--

'Yes, certainly, very handsome, mother and daughter,' from Colonel Vaughan's lips.

'And which is to be the happy object of your notice, Colonel Vaughan?'

she asked, suddenly joining in the conversation. 'I heard grand discussions on the subject on all sides.'

'Really,' replied the colonel, somewhat surprised by the sudden question, 'I did not know I was of so much importance.'

'What! you, about whom every one is speculating.'

'Freda, my dear, I am so glad you are able to speak. I thought you so--ill, dull, unlike yourself, and all that sort of thing.'

'Thanks, papa, I was thoroughly overpowered by the heat; but this delightful breeze has refreshed me. I hope, Colonel Vaughan, you also have got over your weakness. I wonder you ever returned alive from India, if such a day as this was sufficient to upset you.'

Further sarcasm was cut short by their reaching the house, for which Freda was very thankful, at a later period, feeling that she lowered her dignity by allowing herself to allude, however covertly, to Gladys or Miss Nugent. But she was scarcely herself when she did so.

Colonel Vaughan was going to help her out of the carriage, but she pa.s.sed quickly up the steps without touching his arm.

He had felt her lash, and now fully understood that she knew of his meeting with Gladys, and guessed that he had designs upon Miss Nugent or her fortune. For once in his life he felt somewhat abashed as he met the eye of the pale, haughty girl, whom he really admired twenty times as much as Miss Nugent, or any other young lady of his then devotees. And he admired her still more, as she kissed her father's cheek, nodded a haughty 'good-night' to himself, and went upstairs to her room in the haste of strong excitement.

As soon as she was gone, Colonel Vaughan told Mr Gwynne that he had promised Sir Hugh Pryse to go and spend a week with him, and that he should leave Glanyravon for that purpose on the morrow.

'You will come back again, of course?' said Mr Gwynne.

'Oh yes, certainly! but I have only ten days more leave, and then I must bid you all good-bye again.'

'I am so sorry, and so will be Freda when she hears it. What could have been the matter with Freda to-night, I never saw her so odd? But I suppose it was the heat, and all that sort of thing; good-night. I am tired to death, though it was a charming party, certainly a charming party.'