Miranda of the Balcony: A Story

by A. E. W. Mason

"Oh, say something!" cried Lady Donnisthorpe, and tapped with her spoon upon the glass plate.

"Tell me about her," said Charnock, drawing up another chair.

Lady Donnisthorpe lowered her voice and said with great pathos: "She is most unhappy."

Charnock gravely nodded his head. "Why?"

Lady Donnisthorpe settled herself comfortably with the full intention of wringing Charnock's heart if by any means she could.

"Miranda comes of an old Catholic Suffolk family. She was eighteen when she married, and that's six years ago. No, six years and a half. Ralph Warriner was a Lieutenant in the Artillery, and made her acquaintance when he was staying in the neighbourhood of the Pollards, that's Miranda's house in Suffolk. Ralph listened to Allan Bedlow's antediluvian stories. Allan was Miranda's father, her mother died long ago. Ralph captured the father; finally he captured the daughter. Ralph, you see, had many graces but no qualities; he was a bad stone in a handsome setting and Miranda was no expert. How could she be? She lived at Glenham with only her father and a discontented relation, called Jane Holt, for her companions. Consequently she married Ralph Warriner, who got his step the day after the marriage, and the pair went immediately to Gibraltar. Ralph had overestimated Miranda's fortune, and it came out that he was already handsomely dipped; so that their married life began with more than the usual disadvantages. It lasted for three years, and for that time only because of Miranda's patience and endurance. She is very silent about those three years, but we know enough," and Lady Donnisthorpe was for a moment carried away. "It must have been intolerable," she exclaimed. "Ralph Warriner never had cared a snap of his fingers for her. His tastes were despicable, his disposition utterly mean. Cards were in his blood; I verily believe that his heart was an ace of spades. Add to that that he was naturally cantankerous and jealous. To his brother officers he was civil for he owed them money, but he made up for his civility by becoming a bully once he had closed his own front door."

"Yes, yes," interrupted Charnock, hurriedly, as though he had no heart to hear more; "I understand."

"You can understand then that when the crash came we were glad. Two years after the marriage old Allan Bedlow sickened. Miranda came home to nurse him and Ralph--he bought a schooner-yacht. Allan Bedlow died; Miranda inherited, and the estate was settled upon her. Ralph could not touch a farthing of the capital, and he was aggrieved. Miranda returned to Gibraltar, and matters went from worse to worse. The crash came a year later. The nature of it is neither here nor there, but Ralph had to go, and had to go pretty sharp. His schooner-yacht was luckily lying in Gibraltar Bay; he slipped on board before gunfire, and put to sea as soon as it was dark; and he was not an instant too soon. From that moment he disappeared, and the next news we had of him was the discovery of his body upon Rosevear two years afterwards."

Charnock hunted through the jungle of Lady Donnisthorpe's words for a clue to the distress which Miranda had betrayed that evening, but he did not discover one. Another question forced itself into his mind. "Why does Mrs. Warriner live at Ronda?" he asked. "I have never been there, but there are no English residents, I should think."

"That was one of her reasons," replied Lady Donnisthorpe. "At least I think so, but upon that too she is silent, and when she will not speak no one can make her. You see what Ralph did was hushed up,--it was one of those cases which are hushed up,--particularly since he had disappeared and was out of reach. But everyone knew that disgrace attached to it. His name was removed from the Army List. Miranda perhaps shrank from the disgrace. She shrank too, I think, from the cheap pity of which she would have had so much. At all events she did not return home, she sent for Jane Holt, her former companion, and settled at Ronda." Lady Donnisthorpe looked doubtfully at Charnock. "Perhaps there were other reasons too, sacred reasons." But she had not made up her mind whether it would be wise to explain those other reasons before her guests began to take their leave of her; and so the opportunity was lost.