CHAPTER XV.
A GAY COMPANY AT HAZELDEAN.
The week that followed was one never to be forgotten. Such feasting and merry-making, such excursions, and card parties, and dancing parties Mona had never witnessed.
She had read of such scenes occurring in the great manor-houses of England, and had often thought that she should like to witness something of the kind; but she did not imagine that Americans had yet attained the art of displaying such magnificent hospitality. It was a carnival, indeed, from the evening of their arrival until the morning of their departure.
It was the month of February, there was no snow on the ground, and the weather was very mild and more like early spring, than winter, so that every morning there was planned an excursion of some kind—either a drive or a canter on horseback to different points of interest in that picturesque section, which everybody appeared to enjoy as well as if all nature had been at the height of its glory in midsummer.
Mona, of course, was never invited to join these excursions; she was regarded as nothing but a seamstress or a maid, and most of the company would have scorned the idea of thus associating with her upon equal terms.
Her heart often swelled with bitter pain as she watched a gay cavalcade ride away through the park, for she dearly loved horseback riding, and she well knew that six months previous she would have been most cordially welcomed by every member of that merry company.
She wondered what had become of her pretty saddle-horse, Jet, and her uncle's proud steed, Banquo, and sighed regretfully as she reviewed the happy past, when they four—for the horses had seemed almost human—had roamed over the country together. She sometimes even longed to be back in New York among her piles of sewing, for she had not enough to do now to occupy her time, and it often hung heavily on her hands, thus allowing painful memories to depress her.
The third morning after their arrival, just as a gay party was on the point of starting off, Mona, being at liberty, thought she would slip down to the library and try to find an entertaining book to pass away the long hours before lunch.
She was half-way down stairs, when Kitty McKenzie came running breathlessly back, looking flushed and exceedingly disappointed over something.
"Oh, dear!" she cried, as she was passing Mona; "I tripped in my riding-habit, and have ripped the facing so badly that I must change it and go in the carriage with mamma. It is too bad, for I had the loveliest pony to ride."
"Have you ripped it too badly to have it repaired?" Mona asked, sorry to have the gay girl deprived of her coveted pleasure.
"Yes, for it takes me forever to mend anything. I am a wretched bungler with my needle," she confessed, with engaging frankness, but with a conscious blush.
"Let me see it," and Mona stooped to examine the rip. "This is not so bad, after all," she continued, cheerfully. "Just come to my room, and I will catch it up for you; I can do it in less time than it would take to change your dress."
"Can you? Oh, that will be so good of you!" and, delighted that she was not to be deprived of her ride, Miss Kitty followed Mona, with a bright face and an eager step.
Five minutes sufficed for our young seamstress to make the garment wearable, and then she told Miss McKenzie that if she would bring the habit to her upon her return, she would repair it more thoroughly.
The kind-hearted girl was very grateful.
"How kind you are to do it!" she cried, as Mona smoothed the heavy folds into place, then, with a sudden impulse and a sympathetic look into the fair face of the seamstress, she added: "What a pity it is that you have to stay here all by yourself, while the rest of us are having such delightful times! Why cannot you come with us, Miss Richards? I will make mamma let you go with her—there is an extra seat in that carriage."
"Thank you; you are very good to suggest it, Miss McKenzie, but I cannot go," Mona answered, with a flush, but touched that the girl should wish her to share her pleasures.
"I am sure you would enjoy it, for you are young, and it is too bad to be obliged to stay indoors this delightful weather, and I imagine, if the truth were known, you could be as gay as anybody, while truly," with an arch, winsome glance, "I believe you are the prettiest girl here. Do you know how to dance?"
"Yes."
"Then I think I can manage it—if you would like it, Miss Richards—to have you join the german this evening; will you?"
"You are very thoughtful, Miss McKenzie," Mona replied, appreciatively, "but I should feel out of place, even if others were as kindly disposed as yourself."
"You have had trouble—you have lost friends," Miss Kitty remarked, glancing at her black dress.
"Yes—all that I had in the world," Mona returned, with a quivering lip and a sigh that was almost a sob; for the sweet girl's kindly interest moved her deeply.
"I am sorry," said her companion, simply, but sincerely. Then she continued, with heartiness: "But let me count myself your friend after this—will you? I think you are very nice, and I believe it would be very easy to love you—you poor, lonely child!" and before Mona realized her intention, she had stooped and kissed her softly on the cheek.
She did not give her any opportunity to reply, but tripped away, flushing over her own impulsive familiarity.
She looked back over her shoulder as she reached the door and added:
"Good-by, Miss Richards; remember, you and I are to be friends; and thank you ever so much for mending my dress."
She was gone before Mona could answer, even to tell her that she was very welcome, but her heart warmed toward the bright, genial maiden, and she stood listening, with a smile on her lips, to the sound of her little feet pattering down the stairs, and the next moment she caught her merry laugh as some one swung her lightly into her saddle.
Then Mona went down to the library, where she selected a book, and then, finding the room empty, she decided to remain where she was for a while.
Rolling a great easy-chair into a deep bay-window, she nestled, with a feeling of pleasure, in its cozy depths, and was soon deeply absorbed in the contents of her book.
She must have been reading half an hour when a slight sound in another portion of the room startled her. Turning to see what had caused it, she saw Louis Hamblin standing between the parted portieres of an archway, and gazing upon her, a smile of triumph on his handsome face.
Mona sprang from her chair, looking the surprise she felt, for she did not suppose he was in the house.
"Do not rise, Miss Richards," said the young man, as he came forward. "It is really a great pleasure to find you here, but I pray that you will not allow me to disturb you."
"I thought you had gone with the party," the young girl said, hardly knowing how to reply to him, but deeply annoyed by his presence.
"No; I had a raging toothache all night, so had to make up my rest this morning and have but just eaten breakfast. But sit down, Miss Richards; everybody has gone off and left me behind; I am lonely, and nothing would suit me better than a social little chat with yourself," he concluded, with obnoxious familiarity.
Mona drew her graceful form to its full height, while her red lips curled scornfully.
"Thank you, but it might be considered in bad taste for one in Mr. Hamblin's position to be found chatting socially with his aunt's seamstress, whom he is not supposed to know," she said, a note of sarcasm in her tone.
The young man laughed out lightly.
"Ah! you resent it because I did not recognize you the day we came to Hazeldean," he returned; "but you will forgive me, I know, when I tell you that I avoided betraying the fact of our previous acquaintance simply for your own good. I feared it might make you conspicuous if I saluted you, as I wished to do, and my aunt is very particular about the proprieties of life."
Mona smiled proudly. She failed to perceive how a courteous recognition could have made her conspicuous or violated in any way the most rigid laws of etiquette.
"In that case we will continue to observe the proprieties of life upon all occasions," she dryly remarked.
He read her thoughts, and was keenly stung by her words.
"Forgive me," he said, with an assumption of regret and humility, thinking thus the better to gain his end; "had I realized that you would have been so wounded I should have acted very differently. I assure you I will never offend you in the same way again."
"Pray do not be troubled," Mona coldly retorted. "I had no thought of resenting anything which you might consider proper to do. If I thought of the matter at all, it was only in connection with the generally accepted principles of courtesy and good-breeding."
Mr. Hamblin flushed hotly at this keen shaft, but he ignored it, and changed the subject.
"I am sorry to have interrupted you in your reading, Miss Richards. What have you that is interesting?"
"Victor Hugo's 'Les Miserables,'" Mona briefly replied.
"Have you?" the young man eagerly demanded, "I was searching for that book only yesterday. May I look at it one moment? McArthur and I had quite a discussion upon a point regarding Father Madelaine, and we were unable to settle it because we could not find the book."
Mona quietly passed the volume to him; but a blank look overspread his face as he took it.
"Why, it is the original!" he exclaimed, "and I do not read French readily. Are you familiar with it?"
"Oh, yes," and Mona smiled slightly.
She had been accounted the finest French scholar in her class.
Mr. Hamblin regarded her wonderingly.
"Where did you learn French to be able to read it at sight?" he inquired.
"At school."
"But—I thought—" he began, and stopped confused.
"You thought that a common seamstress must necessarily be ignorant, as well as poor," Mona supplemented: "that she would not be likely to have opportunities or ambition for self-improvement. Well, Mr. Hamblin, perhaps some girls in such a position would not, but I honestly believe that there is many a poor girl, who has had to make her own way in life, who is better educated than many of the so-called society belles of to-day."
"I believe it, too, if you are a specimen," her companion returned, as he gazed admiringly into Mona's flushed and animated face.
"At any rate," he added, "you are far more beautiful than the majority of society girls."
"Mr. Hamblin will please reserve his compliments for ears more eager for and more accustomed to them," Mona retorted, with a frown of annoyance.
"Why are you so proud and scornful toward me, Miss Richards?" he appealingly asked. "Can you not see that my admiration for you is genuine—that I really desire to be your friend? And why have you avoided me so persistently of late—why have you rejected my flowers?"
"Because," Mona frankly answered, and meeting his glance squarely, "I know, and you know, that it is not proper for you to offer, nor for me to accept, such attentions, even if I desired them."
"I am my own master; you are your own mistress, if, as you say, you are alone in the world; consequently, such a matter lies between ourselves, without regard to what others might consider as 'proper,' And I may as well make an open confession first as last," he went on, eagerly, and bending nearer to her, with a flushed face. "Ruth, my beautiful Ruth, I love you—I began to love you that morning when we met on the steps before our own door, and every day has only increased my affection for you."
A startled look swept over Mona's face, which had now grown very pale. She had not had a suspicion that she was destined to hear such a declaration as this; it had taken her wholly unawares, and for a moment she was speechless.
But she soon recovered herself.
"Stop!" she haughtily cried "you have no right to use such language to me; you would not presume—you would not dare to do so upon so brief an acquaintance, if I stood upon an equal footing with you, socially. It is only because I am poor and unprotected—because you simply wish to amuse yourself for a time. You would not dare to repeat in the presence of Mrs. Montague what you have just said to me. Now let me pass, if you please, and never presume to address me again as you have to-day."
The indignant girl looked like some beautiful princess as she stood before him and thus resented the insult he had offered her.
Her slight form was held proudly erect, her small head was uplifted with an air of scorn, her eyes blazed forth angry contempt as they met his, while her whole bearing indicated a conscious superiority which both humiliated and stung her would-be suitor.
She had never appeared so beautiful to him before. Her face was as pure as a pearl; her glossy hair, falling loosely away from her white forehead, was simply coiled at the back of her small head, thus revealing its symmetrical proportions to the best advantages. Her great brown eyes glowed and scintillated, her nostrils dilated, her lips quivered with outraged pride and delicacy.
Her dress of dead black fell in soft, clinging folds about her slender form, making her seem taller than she really was, while one hand had been raised to enforce the commands which she had laid upon him.
He thought her the fairest vision he had ever seen, in spite of her indignation against him, and if she had sought to fascinate him—to weave the spell of her witchery more effectually about him, she could have taken no surer way to do so.
He could not fail to admire her spirit—it but served to glorify her in his sight, and made him more eager than before to conquer her.
"Nay, do not leave me thus—do not be so bitter against me, my peerless Ruth," he pleaded. "Perhaps I have been premature in my avowal, but I beg that you will not despise me on that account. Do not judge me so harshly. Lay my impatience rather to my eagerness to win you. I would do anything in the world to make you love me, and now, I fear, I have only been driving you farther from me. I love you, honestly and sincerely, my beautiful Ruth, and I would not only dare to confess it to my aunt, but proclaim it before the world, if that would serve to prove it to you. Ah! teach me how to woo you, my darling; give me but a crumb of hope upon which to feed, and I will try to be satisfied until you can learn to have more confidence in me."
He reached forth his arms as if he would have infolded her; and Mona, who for the moment had been rendered spell-bound by the swift rush of burning words that he had poured forth, seemed suddenly electrified by the act.
She felt both insulted and humiliated by this premature avowal of a love that had not received the slightest encouragement from her, and she recoiled from him with a gesture of contempt.
"I wonder how you have dared to say this to me," she cried, in a voice that quivered with indignation, "when in my very presence you have shown another attentions such as a man has a right to bestow only upon the woman whom he intends to marry. But for the respect I owe myself and my sex, I would like to brand you with a mark that would betray your disloyalty to the world, and make Miss McKenzie despise you as I do; being only a weak woman, however, I must content myself with simply manifesting my scorn, and by telling you to go!" and she pointed authoritatively toward the door with one white taper finger.
A hot, crimson flush dyed the young man's white face with a sense of shame, such as he had never before experienced in the presence of any one, while the purple veins stood out in ridges upon his forehead.
He was completely cowed before her. Conscious himself of the insincerity and unworthiness of his declaration, he knew that she also had read him like an open book, and the knowledge made him fearfully angry; while to be foiled in his purpose and browbeaten by this girl, whom he imagined to be only what she seemed, was more than his indomitable spirit could tamely submit to.
"A love like mine is not to be despised, and you shall yet find it so," he muttered between his tightly shut teeth.
Mona would not deign him a reply, but standing in the same attitude, she again motioned him to go.
Unable longer to endure the unflinching gaze of her clear, scornful eyes, he shrank back through the portieres, which instantly fell into place again, and Mona, with a smile of disdain curving her red lips, went back to her seat by the window.
But all enjoyment in her book was gone; she was much excited, for she had been greatly shaken by the interview and made to feel her position as she never yet had done; and after sitting a few moments gazing sadly out of the window she again went up to her own room.