The Adventures of an Ugly Girl

by Mrs. George Corbett

I wrote glowing accounts to Jerry of all that was being done, and was especially careful to give him full details concerning Bobby and Teddy, and the rats and rabbits. Poor Jerry! he was to have come home for the Christmas holidays, and they were close at hand when a serious accident befell him. He had been too venturesome in some of the school sports, with the result that he had a severe fall and fractured his right leg. His father was telegraphed for at once and lost no time in reaching him. Meanwhile, the boy had been treated by a skillful surgeon, and there was every prospect of his progressing satisfactorily toward recovery. But it was deemed inadvisable to move him at present, so poor Jerry had to forego his anticipated holiday at home.

“I felt awfully sorry for Kendall,” he wrote in his weekly letter home, “because his father and mother were dead, and he would have to spend his holidays at school. Now I am jolly well glad, for he will be company for me.”

It must not be imagined that Jerry was particularly selfish in expressing himself thus. It was only his youthful vagueness that was at fault. The writing, under the circumstances, was hardly legible. But I thought it very brave of the child to write at all.

Meanwhile, Christmas approached and passed with comparative uneventfulness. True, Lord Egreville had proposed to Belle. But she had declined to give him a definite answer, on the plea that she was too young to be engaged just now; the truth being that she was determined not to labor under the disadvantage of being already out of the running when she went to London for the season.

A house in town had been rented for us, and in due course we all migrated thither. I had hardly expected to be introduced to London society yet, and Belle openly grumbled at the idea. But Lady Elizabeth generally got her own way in everything, and when she intimated that there was no reason why I should not enjoy myself like the rest there was no opposition from my father. Arrived in London, however, I found that people were by no means inclined to make a fuss over me, while the “beautiful” Miss Courtney was fêted and courted to her heart’s content.

Still, the proposals she had confidently expected were somewhat chary in realizing themselves, and when they did come they were not as superlatively tempting as they might have been. The fact was, it was pretty generally known that Belle would have no dowry to speak of, and though plenty of young aristocrats admired her immensely, they deemed it advisable to offer their affections and society at the shrine of Mammon. There were a couple of millionaires in the market. But, incredible as it seemed to Belle, there were other girls in London whose physical charms equaled her own, and to these other girls the millionaires succumbed.

Belle fumed. Belle raged. Belle almost anathematized. Belle hated her victorious rivals. But Belle was wily, and presented an unruffled front in the presence of Lady Elizabeth and her relatives. She made the most of the proposals she did get, but professed her inability to love the proposers. Love, indeed! Could such a beautiful sentiment find an entrance into her cold breast? Impossible! What she coveted was wealth and station, and when, toward the end of the season, Lord Egreville’s proved to be the most eligible offer, she accepted him, and had the felicity of seeing her engagement recorded in all the society papers.

I had an idea that the Earl of Greatlands did not care much for Belle, but had never presumed to give utterance to my suspicion. Lady Elizabeth, however, was not quite so reticent.

“I wish you every happiness, dear,” she said to Belle, kissing her warmly, “and I think that you and Cyril will prove very congenial companions; but I am not sure that my father will like to see any mistress at the castle, other than his own wife, so long as he lives.”

“But your father has not got a wife!” exclaimed Belle, with rising resentment at what she considered Lady Elizabeth’s presumption; for, by her engagement to her brother, she was prospectively lifted to the same plane of relationship, and but for the favors which her stepmother could bestow upon her, she would at once have merged the respect due to a mother in the aggressive equality which she deemed a sister-in-law’s meed.