The Adventures of an Ugly Girl

by Mrs. George Corbett

“You miserable little wretch!” exclaimed my father. “How dare you speak to me in that tone? And how dare you cast innuendoes against Belle and Cyril which virtually amount to an accusation?”

“An accusation of what, sir?” I asked, with a calm deliberateness which surprised even myself, and caused my father to stagger as if he had received a blow. And, indeed, he had received such a blow as is to be hoped falls to the lot of few fathers. For my looks and manner, more than my words, had struck him with the sudden conviction that his favorite child was suspected of having at least been accessory to a mortal crime. That the suspicion emanated from the brain of another of his children mattered little to him, for he already disliked me too intensely to feel any heart-pangs on my account. It was quite sufficient, however, to cause him to cast aside the last shred of conventionality as regarded his treatment of myself.

What transpired during the next five minutes I prefer not to relate. There are events in the lifetime of most people which possess either too sacred or too painful an interest for discussion with others. The memory of my last interview with my father awakes in me no emotion but that of resentment at the constant injustice with which he had always treated me, and which culminated on this occasion in my expulsion from his house.

Perhaps he thought that I would not take him at his word, and that at the end of the hour which he had named as the limit of time he would allow me in which to pack up my belongings and rid my family of my presence, I would weepingly sue for mercy and promise to be polite and conciliatory to Belle and the Earl of Greatlands. The mere supposition that I, whose passions were of the strongest, could thus do violence to my feelings, and acknowledge the superiority of two people whom I hated and despised with all my heart, for the sake of retaining a home in which I could never hope to be happy again, still serves to excite my indignation and to provoke me to a feeling of resentment which I would fain repudiate in my calmer moments.

For, after all, my father, poor man, was blinded by his partiality for Belle; and although he fully grasped the deadly import of my unspoken suspicions, he never for a moment doubted his beautiful darling’s goodness, but accepted my attitude merely as a convincing proof of the monstrosity of nature of one to whom had been denied that outward fairness which in his eyes was equal to the strongest proof of inward purity. Thus I sometimes reason, in attempted palliation of his harshness to me. But, somehow, my reasoning has an awkward knack of doubling upon itself and transforming my would-be kindlier leanings into the old imbittered resentment.

My preparations for departure were soon made, although as yet my brain was in too great a turmoil to permit me to make a definite plan for my future guidance. I must remove myself and my belongings quickly. And I must take my leave of Lady Elizabeth without permitting her to be pained by a knowledge of the permanent nature of the estrangement between myself and my family. The latter was a difficult feat for me to perform. But I succeeded in going through the interview in a manner which it pleased me to recall during my subsequent sufferings; for my dear stepmother was spared the pain which would have been hers, if she had realized the anguish of mind which my love for her caused me to hide.

I found her in her dressing-room, reclining on a couch which was drawn up to the fire, the day being somewhat chilly for the time of year. I noted with a sudden foreboding dread the change which the last few weeks had wrought in Lady Elizabeth’s appearance. She was paler, thinner, and altogether much more fragile-looking than when, so short a time ago, she had assisted me to select the trousseau for my own marriage with her father. There was, however, a light in her eyes which had, until lately, been a stranger to them, and which had caused me considerable uneasiness. For it gave me the impression that it had its origin in a feeling deeper even than the grief which an affectionate daughter would naturally feel at the loss of a beloved parent.

Could it be that—oh, no! perish the thought! Why should she be tortured by such suspicions as had fixed their scorpion-fangs in my brain? She could scarcely be so fully convinced of Belle’s capacity for evil as I was, since she had never known her until the glamour of her artfulness and beauty was such as to cause nearly every one who knew her to take a fancy to her. Nor had she such deep reason to distrust one of her own mother’s children as was the case with me. Some hidden sorrow was sapping her life’s strength. But I fervently and sincerely prayed that it might not be the hideous phantom of suspicion which was bidding fair to wreck my own life.

“I have come to say good-by for a time,” I said, speaking with wonderful quietness for one whose brain was in a whirl of stormy emotion. “As you know, things are not as pleasant as they might be between Belle and myself, and father and I have agreed that it will be best for me to return to the Grange for a while. The change will do me good, but I shall be grieved to part from you.”

“But, my dear, we are all going to the Grange shortly,” said Lady Elizabeth, casting upon me a look of anxious scrutiny. “Come here. Kneel beside me, and tell me all about this sudden arrangement. Have Belle and you been quarreling?”