|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Frivolous Cupid
A >> Anthony Hope >> Frivolous Cupid Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 Scanned with OmniPage Professional OCR software
donated by Caere Corporation, 1-800-535-7226.
Contact Mike Lough
FRIVOLOUS CUPID
BY
SIR ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS
(ANTHONY HOPE, PSEUD.)
CONTENTS
I. RELUCTANCE
II. WHY MEN DON'T MARRY
III. A CHANGE OF HEART
IV. A REPENTANT SINNER
V. 'TWIXT WILL AND WILL NOT
VI. WHICH SHALL IT BE?
VII. MARRIAGE BY COMPULSION
VIII. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Cupid, I met thee yesterday
With an empty quiver,
Coming from Clarinda's house
By the reedy river.
And I saw Clarinda stand
Near the pansies, weeping,
With her hands upon her breast
All thine arrows keeping.
FRIVOLOUS CUPID.
----
I.
----
RELUCTANCE.
I.
Neither life nor the lawn-tennis club was so full at Natterley
that the news of Harry Sterling's return had not some importance.
He came back, moreover, to assume a position very different from
his old one. He had left Harrow now, departing in the sweet
aroma of a long score against Eton at Lord's, and was to go up to
Oxford in October. Now between a schoolboy and a University man
there is a gulf, indicated unmistakably by the cigarette which
adorned Harry's mouth as he walked down the street with a
newly acquiescent father, and thoroughly realized by his old
playmates. The young men greeted him as an equal, the boys
grudgingly accepted his superiority, and the girls received him
much as though they had never met him before in their lives and
were pressingly in need of an introduction. These features of
his reappearance amused Mrs. Mortimer; she recollected him as an
untidy, shy, pretty boy; but mind, working on matter, had so
transformed him that she was doubtful enough about him to ask her
husband if that were really Harry Sterling.
Mr. Mortimer, mopping his bald head after one of his energetic
failures at lawn tennis, grunted assent, and remarked that a few
years more would see a like development in their elder son, a
remark which bordered on absurdity; for Johnny was but eight, and
ten years are not a few years to a lady of twenty-eight, whatever
they may seem to a man of forty-four.
Presently Harry, shaking himself free from an entangling group of
the Vicarage girls, joined his father, and the two came across to
Mrs. Mortimer.
She was a favorite of old Sterling's, and he was proud to present
his handsome son to her. She listened graciously to his
jocosities, stealing a glance at Harry when his father called him
"a good boy." Harry blushed and assumed an air of indifference,
tossing his hair back from his smooth forehead, and swinging his
racket carelessly in his hand. The lady addressed some words of
patronizing kindness to him, seeking to put him at his ease. She
seemed to succeed to some extent, for he let his father and her
husband go off together, and sat down by her on the bench,
regardless of the fact that the Vicarage girls were waiting for
him to make a fourth.
He said nothing, and Mrs. Mortimer looked at him from under her
long lashes; in so doing she discovered that he was looking at
her.
"Aren't you going to play any more, Mr. Sterling?" she asked.
"Why aren't you playing?" he rejoined.
"My husband says I play too badly."
"Oh, play with me! We shall make a good pair."
"Then you must be very good."
"Well, no one can play a hang here, you know. Besides I'm sure
you're all right, really."
"You forget my weight of years."
He opened his blue eyes a little, and laughed. He was, in fact,
astonished to find that she was quite a young woman. Remembering
old Mortimer and the babies, he had thought of her as full
middle-aged. But she was not; nor had she that likeness to a
suet pudding, which his newborn critical faculty cruelly detected
in his old friends, the Vicarage girls.
There was one of them--Maudie--with whom he had flirted in his
holidays; he wondered at that, especially when a relentless
memory told him that Mrs. Mortimer must have been at the
parties where the thing went on. He felt very much older, so
much older that Mrs. Mortimer became at once a contemporary.
Why, then, should she begin, as she now did, to talk to him, in
quasi maternal fashion, about his prospects? Men don't have
prospects, or, anyhow, are spared questionings thereon.
Either from impatience of this topic, or because, after all,
tennis was not to be neglected, he left her, and she sat alone
for a little while, watching him play. She was glad that she had
not played; she could not have rivaled the activity of the
Vicarage girls. She got up and joined Mrs. Sterling, who was
presiding over the club teapot. The good lady expected
compliments on her son, but for some reason Mrs. Mortimer gave
her none. Very soon, indeed, she took Johnnie away with her,
leaving her husband to follow at his leisure.
In comparing Maudie Sinclair to a suet pudding, Harry had looked
at the dark side of the matter.
The suggestion, though indisputable, was only occasionally
obtrusive, and as a rule hushed almost to silence by the pleasant
good nature which redeemed shapeless features. Mrs. Mortimer had
always liked Maudie, who ran in and out of her house continually,
and had made of herself a vice-mother to the little children.
The very next day she came, and, in the intervals of playing
cricket with Johnnie, took occasion to inform Mrs. Mortimer that
in her opinion Harry Sterling was by no means improved by his new
status and dignity. She went so far as to use the term "stuck-
up." "He didn't use to be like that," she said, shaking her
head; "he used to be very jolly." Mrs. Mortimer was relieved to
note an entire absence of romance either in the regretted past or
the condemned present. Maudie mourned a friend spoiled, not an
admirer lost; the tone of her criticisms left no doubt of it, and
Mrs. Mortimer, with a laugh, announced her intention of asking
the Sterlings to dinner and having Maudie to meet them. "You
will be able to make it up then," said she.
"Why, I see him every day at the tennis club," cried Maudie in
surprise.
The faintest of blushes tinged Mrs. Mortimer's cheek as she chid
herself for forgetting this obvious fact.
The situation now developed rapidly. The absurd thing happened:
Harry Sterling began to take a serious view of his attachment to
Mrs. Mortimer. The one thing more absurd, that she should take a
serious view of it, had not happened yet, and, indeed, would
never happen; so she told herself with a nervous little laugh.
Harry gave her no opportunity of saying so to him, for you cannot
reprove glances or discourage pressings of your hand in fashion
so blunt.
And he was very discreet: he never made her look foolish. In
public he treated her with just the degree of attention that
gained his mother's fond eulogium, and his father's approving
smile; while Mr. Mortimer, who went to London at nine o'clock
every morning and did not return till seven, was very seldom
bothered by finding the young fellow hanging about the house.
Certainly he came pretty frequently between the hours named, but
it was, as the children could have witnessed, to play with them.
And, through his comings and goings, Mrs. Mortimer moved with
pleasure, vexation, self-contempt, and eagerness.
One night she and her husband went to dine with the Sterlings.
After dinner Mr. Mortimer accepted his host's invitation to stay
for a smoke. He saw no difficulty in his wife walking home
alone; it was but half a mile, and the night was fine and
moonlit. Mrs. Mortimer made no difficulty either, but Mrs.
Sterling was sure that Harry would be delighted to see Mrs.
Mortimer to her house.
She liked the boy to learn habits of politeness, she said, and
his father eagerly proffered his escort, waving aside Mrs.
Mortimer's protest that she would not think of troubling Mr.
Harry; throughout which conversation Harry said nothing at
all, but stood smiling, with his hat in his hand, the picture of
an obedient, well-mannered youth. There are generally two ways
anywhere, and there were two from the Sterlings' to the
Mortimers': the short one through the village, and the long one
round by the lane and across the Church meadow. The path
diverging to the latter route comes very soon after you leave the
Sterlings', and not a word had passed when Mrs. Mortimer and
Harry reached it. Still without a word, Harry turned off to
follow the path. Mrs. Mortimer glanced at him; Harry smiled.
"It's much longer," she said.
"There's lots of time," rejoined Harry, "and it's such a jolly
night." The better to enjoy the night's beauty, he slackened his
pace to a very crawl.
"It's rather dark; won't you take my arm?" he said.
"What nonsense! Why, I could see to read!"
"But I'm sure you're tired."
"How absurd you are! Was it a great bore?"
"What?"
"Why, coming."
"No," said Harry.
In such affairs monosyllables are danger signals. A long
protestation might have meant nothing: in this short, sufficient
negative Mrs. Mortimer recognized the boy's sincerity. A little
thrill of pride and shame, and perhaps something else, ran
through her. The night was hot and she unfastened the clasp of
her cloak, breathing a trifle quickly. To relieve the silence,
she said, with a laugh:
"You see we poor married women have to depend on charity. Our
husbands don't care to walk home with us. Your father was bent
on your coming."
Harry laughed a short laugh; the utter darkness of Mr. Sterling's
condition struck through his agitation down to his sense of
humor. Mrs. Mortimer smiled at him; she could not help it: the
secret between them was so pleasant to her, even while she
hated herself for its existence.
They had reached the meadow now, halfway through their journey.
A little gate led into it and Harry stopped, leaning his arm on
the top rail.
"Oh, no! we must go on," she murmured.
"They won't move for an hour yet," he answered, and then he
suddenly broke out:
"How--how funny it is! I hardly remembered you, you know."
"Oh, but I remembered you, a pretty little boy;" and she looked
up at his face, half a foot above her. Mere stature has much
effect and the little boy stage seemed very far away. And he
knew that it did, for he put out his hand to take hers. She drew
back.
"No," she said.
Harry blushed. She took hold of the gate and he, yielding his
place, let her pass through. For a minute or two they walked on
in silence.
"Oh, how silly you are!" she cried then, beginning with a laugh
and ending with a strange catch in her throat. "Why, you're
only just out of knickerbockers!"
"I don't care, I don't care, Hilda----"
"Hush, hush! Oh, indeed, you must be quiet! See, we are nearly
home."
He seized her hand, not to be quelled this time, and, bending low
over it, kissed it. She did not draw it away, but watched him
with a curious, pained smile. He looked up in her face, his own
glowing with excitement. He righted himself to his full stature
and, from that stooping, kissed her on the lips.
"Oh, you silly boy!" she moaned, and found herself alone in the
meadow. He had gone swiftly back by the way they had come, and
she went on to her home.
"Well, the boy saw you home?" asked Mr. Mortimer when he arrived
half an hour later.
"Yes," she said, raising her head from the cushions of the sofa
on which he found her lying.
"I supposed so, but he didn't come into the smoking-room when he
got back. Went straight to bed, I expect. He's a nice-mannered
young fellow, isn't he?"
"Oh, very!" said Mrs. Mortimer.
II.
Mr. Mortimer had never been so looked after, cosseted, and
comforted for his early start as the next morning, nor the
children found their mother so patient and affectionate. She was
in an abasement of shame and disgust at herself, and quite unable
to treat her transgression lightly. That he was a boy and she--
not a girl--seemed to charge her with his as well as her own
sins, and, besides this moral aggravation, entailed a lower
anxiety as to his discretion and secrecy that drove her half mad
with worry. Suppose he should boast of it! Or, if he were not
bad enough for that, only suppose he should be carried away into
carelessness about it! He had nothing to fear worse than
what he would call "a wigging" and perhaps summary dismissal to a
tutor's: she had more at risk than she could bear to think of.
Probably, by now, he recognized his foolishness, and laughed at
himself and her. This thought made her no happier, for men may
do all that--and yet, very often, they do not stop.
She had to go to a party at the Vicarage in the afternoon. Harry
would be sure to be there, and, with a conflict of feeling
finding expression in her acts, she protected herself by taking
all the children, while she inconsistently dressed herself in her
most youthful and coquettish costume. She found herself almost
grudging Johnnie his rapidly increasing inches, even while she
relied on him for an assertion of her position as a matron. For
the folly of last night was to be over and done with, and her
acquaintance with Harry Sterling to return to its only possible
sane basis; that she was resolved on, but she wanted Harry
honestly--even keenly--to regret her determination.
He was talking to Maudie Sinclair when she arrived; he took off
his hat, but did not allow his eyes to meet hers. She gathered
her children round her, and sat down among the chaperons. Mrs.
Sterling came and talked to her; divining a sympathy, the good
mother had much to say of her son, of her hopes and her fears for
him; so many dangers beset young men, especially if they were
attractive, like Harry; there were debts, idleness, fast men,
and--worst of all--there were designing women, ready to impose on
and ruin the innocence of youth.
"He's been such a good boy till now," said Mrs. Sterling, "but,
of course, his father and I feel anxious. If we could only keep
him here, out of harm's way, under our own eyes!"
Mrs. Mortimer murmured consolation.
"How kind of you! And your influence is so good for him. He
thinks such a lot of you, Hilda."
Mrs. Mortimer, tried too hard, rose and strolled away. Harry's
set seemed to end almost directly, and a moment later he was
shaking hands with her, still keeping his eyes away from hers.
She made her grasp cold and inanimate, and he divined the
displeasure she meant to indicate.
"You must go and play again," she said, "or talk to the girls.
You mustn't come and talk to me."
"Why not! How can I help it--now?"
The laughing at her and himself had evidently not come, but, bad
as that would have been to bear, his tone threatened something
worse.
"Don't," she answered sharply. "I'm very angry. You were very
unkind and--and ungentlemanly last night."
He flushed crimson.
"Didn't you like it?" he asked, with the terrible simplicity of
his youth.
For all her trouble, she had to bite her lip to hide a smile.
What a question to ask--just in so many words!
"It was very, very wicked, and, of course, I didn't like it,"
she answered. "Oh, Harry! don't you know how wicked it was?"
"Oh, yes! I know that, of course," said he, picking at the straw
of his hat, which he was carrying in his hand.
"Well, then!" she said.
"I couldn't help it."
"You must help it. Oh, don't you know--oh, it's absurd! I'm
years older than you."
"You looked so--so awfully pretty."
"I can't stand talking to you. They'll all see."
"Oh, it's all right. You're a friend of mother's, you know. I
say, when shall I be able to see you again--alone, you know?"
Mrs. Mortimer was within an ace of a burst of tears. He seemed
not to know that he made her faint with shame, and mad with
exultation, and bewildered with terror all in a moment. His new
manhood took no heed, save of itself. Was this being out of
harm's way, under the eyes of those poor blind parents?
"If--if you care the least for me--for what I wish, go away,
Harry," she whispered.
He looked at her in wonder, but, with a frown on his face, did as
he was told. Five minutes later he was playing again; she heard
him shout "Thirty--love," as he served, a note of triumphant
battle in his voice. She believed that she was altogether out of
his thoughts.
Her husband was to dine in town that night, and, for sheer
protection, she made Maudie Sinclair come and share her evening
meal. The children were put to bed, and they sat down alone
together, talking over the party. Maudie was pleased to relax a
little of her severity toward Harry Sterling; she admitted that
he had been very useful in arranging the sets, and very pleasant
to everyone.
"Of course, he's conceited," she said, "but all boys are. He'll
get over it."
"You talk as if you were a hundred, Maudie," laughed Mrs.
Mortimer. "He's older than you are."
"Oh, but boys are much younger than girls, Mrs. Mortimer. Harry
Sterling's quite a boy still."
A knock sounded at the door. A minute later the boy walked in.
The sight of Maudie Sinclair produced a momentary start, but he
recovered himself and delivered a note from his mother, the
excuse for his visit. It was an invitation for a few days ahead;
there could certainly have been no hurry for it to arrive that
night. While Mrs. Mortimer read it, Harry sat down and looked at
her. She was obliged to treat his arrival as unimportant, and
invited him to have a glass of wine.
"Why are you in evening dress?" asked Maudie wonderingly.
"For dinner," answered Harry.
"Do you dress when you're alone at home?"
"Generally. Most men do."
Maudie allowed herself to laugh. Mrs. Mortimer saw the joke,
too, but its amusement was bitter to her.
"I like it," she said gently. "Most of the men I know do it."
"Your husband doesn't," observed Miss Sinclair.
"Poor George gets down from town so tired."
She gave Harry the reply she had written (it was a refusal--she
could not have told why), but he seemed not to understand that he
was to go. Before he apprehended, she had to give him a
significant glance; she gave it in dread of Maudie's eyes. She
knew how sharp schoolgirls' eyes are in such things. Whether
Maudie saw it or not, Harry did; he sprang to his feet and said
good-night.
Maudie was not long after him. The conversation languished, and
there was nothing to keep her. With an honest yawn she took her
leave. Mrs. Mortimer accompanied her down the garden to the
gate. As she went, she became to her startled horror aware of a
third person in the garden. She got rid of Maudie as soon as she
could, and turned back to the house. Harry, emerging from
behind a tree, stood before her.
"I know what you're going to say," he said doggedly, "but I
couldn't help it. I was dying to see you again." She spread out
her hands as though to push him away. She was like a frightened
girl.
"Oh, you're mad!" she whispered. "You must go. Suppose anyone
should come. Suppose my husband----"
"I can't help it. I won't stay long."
"Harry, Harry, don't be cruel! You'll ruin me, Harry. If you
love me, go--if you love me."
Even now he hardly fathomed her distress, but she had made him
understand that this spot and this time were too dangerous.
"Tell me where I can see you safely," he asked, almost demanded.
"You can see me safely--nowhere."
"Nowhere? You mean that you won't----"
"Harry, come here a minute--there--no closer. I just want to be
able to touch your hair. Go away, dear--yes, I said `dear.'
Do please go away. You--you won't be any happier afterward for
having--if--if you don't go away."
He stood irresolutely still. Her fingers lightly touched his
hair, and then her arm dropped at her side. He saw a tear run
down her cheek. Suddenly his own face turned crimson.
"I'm--I'm very sorry," he muttered. "I didn't mean----"
"Good-night. I'm going in."
She held out her hand. Again he bent and kissed it, and, as he
did so, he felt the light touch of her lips among his hair.
"I'm such a foolish, foolish woman," she whispered, "but you're a
gentleman, Harry," and she drew her hand away and left him.
Two days later she took her children off to the seaside. And the
Mortimers never came back to Natterley. She wrote and told Mrs.
Sterling that George wanted to be nearer his work in town, and
that they had gone to live at Wimbledon.
"How we shall miss her!" exclaimed good Mrs. Sterling. "Poor
Harry! what'll he say?"
III.
One day, at Brighton, some six years later, a lady in widow's
weeds, accompanied by a long, loose-limbed boy of fourteen, was
taking the air by the sea. The place was full of people, and the
scene gay.
Mrs. Mortimer sat down on a seat and Johnnie stood idly by her.
Presently a young man and a girl came along. While they were
still a long way off, Mrs. Mortimer, who was looking in that
direction, suddenly leaned forward, started a little, and looked
hard at them. Johnnie, noticing nothing, whistled unconcernedly.
The couple drew near. Mrs. Mortimer sat with a faint smile on
her face. The girl was chatting merrily to the young man, and he
listened to her and laughed every now and then, but his
bright eyes were not fixed on her, but were here, there, and
everywhere, where metal attractive to such eyes might be found.
The discursive mood of the eyes somehow pleased Mrs. Mortimer.
Just as the young man came opposite her, he glanced in her
direction.
Mrs. Mortimer wore the curious, half-indifferent, half-expectant
air of one ready for recognition, but not claiming it as a right.
At the first glance, a puzzled look came into the young man's
eyes. He looked again: then there was a blank in his eyes. Mrs.
Mortimer made no sign, but sat still, half-expectant. He was
past her now, but he flung a last glance over his shoulder. He
was evidently very doubtful whether the lady on the seat, in the
heavy mourning robes, were someone he knew or not. First he
thought she was, and then he thought she wasn't. The face
certainly reminded him of--now who the deuce was it? Harry knit
his brows and exclaimed:
"I half believe that's somebody I know!"
And he puzzled over it, for nearly five minutes, all in vain.
Meanwhile Mrs. Mortimer looked at the sea, till Johnnie told her
that it was dinner-time.
II.
WHY MEN DON'T MARRY.
We were sitting around the fire at Colonel Holborow's. Dinner
was over--had, in fact, been over for some time--the hour of
smoke, whisky, and confidence had arrived, and we had been
telling one another the various reasons which accounted for our
being unmarried, for we were all bachelors except the colonel,
and he had, as a variety, told the reasons why he wished he was
unmarried (his wife was away). Jack Dexter, however, had not
spoken, and it was only in response to a direct appeal that he
related the following story. The story may be true or untrue,
but I must remark that Jack always had rather a weakness for
representing himself on terms of condescending intimacy with
the nobility and even greater folk.
Jack sighed deeply. There was a sympathetic silence. Then he
began:
"For some reason best known to herself," said Jack, with a
patient shrug of his shoulders, "the Duchess of Medmenham (I
don't know whether any of you fellows know her) chose to object
to me as a suitor for the hand of her daughter, Mary Fitzmoine.
The woman was so ignorant that she may really have thought that
my birth was not equal to her daughter's; but all the world knows
that the Munns were yeomen two hundred years ago, and that her
Grace's family hails from a stucco villa in the neighborhood of
Cardiff. However, the duchess did object; and when the season
(in the course of which I had met Lady Mary many times) ended,
instead of allowing her daughter to pay a series of visits at
houses where I had arranged to be, she sent her off to
Switzerland, under the care of a dragon whom she had engaged to
keep me and other dangerous fellows at a proper distance. On
hearing of what had happened from George Fitzmoine (an intimate
friend of mine), I at once threw up my visits and started in
pursuit. I felt confident that Lady Mary was favorably inclined
(in fact, I had certain proofs which--but no matter), and that if
I won her heart I could break down the old lady's opposition. I
should certainly have succeeded in my enterprise, and been at
this moment the husband of one of the most beautiful girls in
England, but for a very curious and unfortunate circumstance,
which placed me in an unfavorable light in Mary's eyes. I was
not to blame; it was just a bit of bad luck.
"I ranged over most of Switzerland in search of Lady Mary.
Wherever I went I asked about her, and at last I got upon the
track. At Interlaken I found her name in the visitors' book,
together with that of a Miss Dibbs, whom I took to be the dragon.
I questioned the porter and found that the two ladies had, the
afternoon before, hired a carriage and driven to a quiet
little village some fifteen miles off, where there was a small
but good inn. Here they evidently meant to stay, for letters
were to be sent after them there for the next week. The place
was described to me as pretty and retired; it seemed, therefore,
an ideal spot for my purpose. I made up my mind at once. I
started the next day after luncheon, took the journey easily, and
came in sight of the little inn about seven o'clock in the
evening. All went well. The only question was as to the
disposition of Miss Dibbs toward me. I prayed that she might
turn out to be a romantic dragon; but, in case she should prove
obstinate, I made my approaches with all possible caution. When
my carriage stopped at the door I jumped out. The head waiter, a
big fellow in a white waistcoat, was on the steps. I drew him
aside, and took a ten-franc piece from my pocket.
Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
|
|
|
|
|
|