I WONDER WHO SHE CAN BE?
"The woman who deliberates is lost."
--Addison.
"I wonder who that pretty girl is Sir Barry Traleigh is talking with so
earnestly down by the gate?" Blondine saunters into Dolores' pretty room
to wait for her cousin to go down to tea.
"Any one you know?" asks Dolores, from the mirror where she is busy
twisting her back hair up and sticking silver pins here and there
through it.
"They have just hailed a carriage, and are driving off," Miss Gray says
excitedly, from the window where she has seen Sir Barry and his pretty
companion disappear.
"I suppose he has the liberty to go driving with, or talk to whom he
chooses," Dolores retorts crossly.
She wonders who this fair unknown can be, and wonders still more why Sir
Barry should be so interested in her--for interested he must be, if he
would leave his tea. Still she is relieved to know she will not have to
meet him again to-day anyway. She would like to tell Blondine that she
and Sir Barry were good friends; but a feeling comes that Blondine will
only laugh triumphantly at her and say "I knew it would be so." She is
wakened from any further wonderment by Blondine.
"Hurry, Dolores, uncle Dick won't wait all the evening for you to get
that bang of yours just fixed without a hair out of place, so come
quick. I am as hungry as, as--who was the hungriest person you ever
heard or read of, Dolores?"
"I am afraid I cannot say, dear. You plunge too deep for me to follow
you," is Dolores' quiet answer.
The second tea gong sounds; they hurry down, to find uncle Dick emerging
from the gentlemen's parlor, and just in time to hear his loud jovial
voice remark to his companion--"I wonder, in the name of Olympus if my
girls intend to come to their supper to-night?"
It is morning--a bright, deliciously warm morning--with light yellowish
white clouds floating in the sky, and a soft, light wind coming in,
bringing the scent of the salt waves to heal the diseases, and warm or
thaw out the cold English tourists who are here seeking the heat of a
warmer climate than their own. Dolores and Blondine are sitting on the
pretty green bank, in sight of the remains of what the peasants call the
"Bath of the Fairies," a Roman amphitheatre. Blondine is supposed to be
sketching this picturesque spot; at least it is for that purpose that
they have walked two long miles to Cimella this delightful morning. But
the sketching is not progressing very rapidly; Blondine loses herself in
a day dream. Sitting there under the old elm tree, resting her dark head
against its friendly trunk, Blondine forgets the Abbey, likewise all
other things worldly. The white lids droop lower and lower over the dark
eyes, the breeze whispers a soft, gentle lullaby, all is stillness
around. Dolores looks up from her book to ask how the abbey is
progressing under Blondine's skilled fingers; but Dolores may save
herself the trouble of speaking, for Miss Blondine is asleep. Then a
wandering fit seizes Dolores; she wonders what is down yonder; perhaps
some pretty cottage hidden from view by those jealous hedges of
hawthorn; she will go and see. On and on, over the narrow beaten track
goes Dolores, charmed onward by she knew not what; up little hills and
down little paths she goes, and yet the ideal cottage she is hunting for
fails to present itself.
Suddenly voices make her pause to listen. She is startled, for surely
the tones are familiar. Only a hedge of cedar divides her from them, and
unintentionally she is forced to listen to a conversation not intended
for her ears, or else betray her presence, and Dolores would sooner do
anything than stir.
"Do go back, Jantie, do for my sake: you will never regret it. Do make
up your mind, for you cannot think how you worry me. I promise you
faithfully I will publish the marriage in all the leading journals as
soon as I can do so discreetly. Now, dear, you will go back to Scotland,
to please me, won't you?" Sir Barry Traleigh's voice is full of tender
pleading.
"Never again shall the finger of scorn be pointed toward me. No! I
refuse to return home until I am an acknowledged wife. I say no! I shall
never be despised for a sin of which I am innocent."
The girl's clear voice is raised in a passionate flow of rage and
sorrow. They pass out of hearing, leaving Dolores pale and trembling.
Sir Barry here; and of course it is the girl Blondine had seen with him
the previous afternoon; his wife, of whom he was ashamed. Of course she
is his wife, and he is persuading her to go home, and promises to
acknowledge her before the world some day. Ah! some day! And meanwhile
he has been winning her--Dolores--heart; he, the husband of another
woman. May Heaven forgive him; she never can. The sun dazzles her eyes,
the day has lost its charm; she gets back somehow, to find Blondine
awake, and wondering what had happened to her. Blondine's careless laugh
is hushed at sight of the utterly wretched, hopeless look on Dolores'
face.
"My dear! what is it?" she cries, springing to her feet, and taking
Dolores' cold hands in both her warm ones. But Dolores turns her
miserable face away from Blondine's enquiring glance.
"Oh, Blondine, Blondine; would to Heaven we had never seen this place.
If I were only home--home, where there is no treachery or deception. Oh,
Blondine, Blondine!"
Nothing can be more perplexed than Blondine's mind, as she has often
thought there was no accounting for Dolores' conduct lately. Blondine
hurries her sketch book into the little willow-basket.
"I suppose we had better get back," she says as calmly as her confused
feelings will allow, and Dolores wearily assents. Certainly the bright
day which promised so much pleasure is falling most woefully short of
its fulfillment.
"Tell me what ails you, dear; are you ill? Come, tell me all about it,
won't you, Dolores." But Dolores shakes her pretty head; she does not
seem inclined to tell any one anything. Blondine gives her up in
despair. She is beginning to think herself, perhaps it would have been
better not to have come here; and yet what was there, here in bright,
pleasant, sunny Nice, that the most fastidious could object to? Poor
Blondine gives this second problem up as hopeless as the first.
"I suppose you are pretty well packed. You know we start by the
five-fifteen coach this afternoon; so look lively, my dears."
Uncle Dick's pompous figure is standing in the gateway, and uncle Dick's
merry grey eyes look enquiringly at Dolores' pale face.
"What's up now? Too much high jinks seems to use you up soon, young
lady."
Major Gray goes in for pink cheeks and red lips, like blooming
Blondine's, for instance. He admires Dolores immensely, but she might
have been a marble statue now, for all the pink there is in her face;
she looks positively 'chalky.'
"Uncle Dick, we are surely not off so soon?" Blondine exclaims.
"Yes, my dear, but we are; we have been gone a good round year now. See,
we have done Marseilles, Naples, Cannes, Monaco, Mentone, San Remo,
Pegli, Genoa, Spezia, Lucca, Pisa, Leghorn, Serrento, Capri and Nice,
and I feel as if I should enjoy the sight of home faces again. So hurry
now, so we won't be late."
Uncle Dick rolls off down street at a dashing pace, full of glee at
having got over the question of departure. He had expected to be
assailed by an avalanche of refusals at leaving Italy for a long while
yet. It has all been gotten over with so smoothly, that Major Gray could
at this moment have shaken hands with his greatest enemy--if such a
being existed, which was doubtful--and said "hope you're well," with
genuine warmth.
Passing through the hall Blondine sees Mrs. St. James seated in her
parlor, the doors open, with dear Florrie, dear Bessie, dear Nattie, and
all the other dears, sitting about consoling the bereaved lady. Arial
looks exceedingly handsome in her dress of deep crape. An interesting
looking woman at all times, just now she is doubly so, receiving the
sympathy of endless numbers of friends over her recent loss. Blondine
steps in the room to tell Mrs. St. James of their going, and to say
farewell. Not so Dolores; she hurries to her rooms, gives her maid all
due instructions concerning luggage, and then speeds away to the pretty
burying ground, to pause beside a tiny grave; a broken pillar of
granite, with the simple words "My son Roy," marking the resting place
of her little lost friend.
Dolores gathers a few forget-me-nots from around the mound--flowers that
in after years will remind her of this tiny grave in Italy. Here her
resolution is taken to forgive--she cannot forget--two persons whom she
firmly believes are at war against her; then with a long, last,
lingering glance around, she goes.
Blondine hails the sight of Dolores with joy. Will she just lend a hand
for a minute, to see if all is ready? Poor Blondine would never get over
the world with doing her own packing is very evident, from the sight
that meets Dolores' eyes. Things always contrived to get mixed up so
queerly; her best bonnets and boots, the desk with the ink and mucilage
bottles, generally reposed calmly upon her most dainty pair of gloves.
Now she cannot find her pearl-handled knife, the ivory opera glasses, or
her silver nut crackers. Dolores searches around with the eyes of a
professional detective, and at length discovers the missing articles in
the pocket of Blondine's riding habit; the knife was found in the window
sash, where it had been put to keep it from rattling the night before
when the wind blew.
The last trunk is strapped, the hasty search around for farewell words
to friends (of which there are shoals); the coach is at the door; they
are off, going by the famous Cornice route for the last time. Its many
scenic beauties will scarcely ever fade from Blondine's admiring eyes;
her memory will never fail on that score. Much disgusted is uncle Dick
at not having seen "that boy Traleigh," and wonders if he will "turn
up," ere they leave; but Traleigh fails to "turn up," greatly to Dolores
satisfaction.
Uncle Dick is in high glee, to find that a steamer sails the following
morning, and Blondine turns pale when some one suggests to Major Gray
that they may look forward to a pretty "tumbly" voyage, as gales seem
the proper thing during the past week.
Dolores cheers up at the mention of home, becomes absorbed in purchasing
numerous foreign trifles for Zoe, talks learnedly on the wretchedness of
foreign cooking, and altogether appears the cheerful, but not gushing
Dolores of old.
The passage across was, as predicted, rather inclined to be "tumbly,"
indeed, at times most uncomfortably so. Blondine declares if Heaven will
ever spare her to get on land once more, never would human persuasion
entice her across old Atlantic again. Uncle Dick was delighted with the
pitch and toss and knock down of the angry waters, and Dolores
laughingly declares, "uncle Dick you were born for a sailor but became
spoilt in the drilling."