CHAPTER XXVII.
MR. WYNDHAM'S WOOING.
A bleak and rainy morning in Speckport—a raw and windy morning, with a sky all lead-color, except where it was inky black. A wild, wet, rainy day, on which nobody wanted to stir out if they could help it. An utterly black and miserable day, that which followed the officers' ball.
On this wretchedly wet and windy day Olive Henderson sat at her chamber window, and looked out over the black and foam-crested bay. The room looked very cozy and pleasant, with its soft, warm, bright-hued Brussels carpet, its cushioned easy-chairs and lounges, its white-draped bed, its pretty pictures and tables, and bright coal fire burning in the glittering steel grate, its costly window-draperies of lace and damask, looking all the more pleasant and luxurious by contrast with the black, bleak day outside.
A delightful room this bad May morning, a room to bask and luxuriate in, this chamber of Olive Henderson. But Olive Henderson herself, sitting by the window, staring blankly out, seemed to take very little enjoyment in its comfort and beauty. She wore a white loose muslin wrapper, tied carelessly round the slender waist with a crimson cord, its every fold, as it hung straight about her, telling how indifferently the simple toilette had been made. All her profuse black hair was drawn away from her face, haggard and worn in the gray morning light, and fastened in a great careless knot behind. But, somehow, the stateliness that was a part of herself characterized her as strikingly in this primitive simplicity as when robed in velvet and diamonds last night. Perhaps Semiramis, Queen of Assyria, when in trouble with foreign parts, wore white muslin wrappers, and her black hair disheveled, before her subjects, and managed to look Queen Semiramis withal. It isn't likely, you know, but she may.
Rain, rain, rain! How ceaselessly it lashed the windows, and how piteously it beat on the heads of the poor little newsboys, passing up and down Golden Row, and chanting, disconsolately, "Morning Snorter," the "Sn-o-o-or-ter!" Perhaps, looking up at the curtained-window, where the young lady sat, these newsboys thought it was a fine thing to be Miss Olive Henderson, the heiress of Redmon, and live in a handsome house, with servants to wait on her, and nothing to do but play the piano, and drive about in her carriage all day long. But, I am pretty sure, there was not a pug-nosed urchin coming there that particular morning, who was not a thousand times happier than the heiress of Redmon.
Discovered—disgraced—in the power of this man—this stranger! Liable to be exposed as a liar and a cheat to the world at any hour! Liable to have all this wealth and luxury, for which she had done so much—for which she had risked her very soul—torn from her at any instant, and she herself thrust out to fight the battle of life, with poverty and labor and misery once more. She seemed to have grown old in four-and-twenty hours, with her haggard cheeks and great hollow eyes. She had sat as she was sitting now for hours, her hands clasped loosely in her lap, her vacant gaze fixed on the wretched day, but seeing nothing. Only yesterday, and she had been so sure, so secure, so happy, and now—and now!
She had not fainted the night before. Laura Blair found her lying back ghastly and white in her chair, but not insensible. The ballroom had been filled with consternation, and she was so surrounded immediately that Mr. Wyndham, returning with his glass of water, could find no possibility of approaching her. They had led her into the ladies' dressing-room, and Captain Cavendish had gone for a cab; and when she was a little better, they took her home, and the rest went back to the ballroom. People began to think that in spite of Miss Henderson's apparent physical perfection, she was subject to fainting fits, and pitied her very much, as they resumed their dancing. But the eclipsed belles of Speckport rejoiced, I am afraid, in their wicked little hearts, that the conqueress was gone, and held up their pretty heads, which had drooped in the sunlight of her shining presence before.
Once at home, Miss Henderson professed herself perfectly restored, and insisted on Laura and her mamma, who had been their chaperone, and Captain Cavendish, going back to the ball once more.
"I shall do well enough now," she said, wearily. "I am very foolish, but——"