THE FIRST MEETING.
It was the man who spoke first.
“I asked to see Mr. or Mrs. Pennington,” he said, curtly.
“And you have been told,” Polly answered, “that you can see neither,
since neither are here to be seen.”
“Your servant was most impertinent,” the man said, sharply; “her manner
was so misleading I insisted on being admitted.”
“Yes,” said Polly, calmly; “I heard you, and I consider you were very
rude.”
A faint smile flickered across the man’s face for the space of an
instant.
“May I ask to whom I have the honor of speaking?” he said, with a touch
of amused courtesy.
“I am Polly—I mean Mary—Pennington,” the girl drew herself up to
her full height, “and may I ask who you are?” she queried, in her own
peculiarly frank manner.
“My name is Valentine Ambleton. I am a cousin of Mark Wentworth.”
Polly’s expression changed.
“Oh,” she said, a little frightened now at her temerity. “Oh! won’t you
sit down, Mr. Ambleton? My father is at business in the city, but my
mother will be back directly. I expect her every minute; she has gone
out with my eldest sister.”
“Miss Christina Pennington?” queried Mr. Ambleton, with a strange tone
in his voice as he spoke Chrissie’s name.
Polly nodded her head.
“Won’t you sit down?” she asked, more and more impressed that she had
not received him very graciously. “Or perhaps you had better come into
the drawing room. Chris—I mean mother—may be vexed to know you are
here.”
The mere fact of his announced connection with Sir Mark Wentworth
made Polly feel it incumbent upon her to show him a great deal of
attention. The air of mystery and grandeur with which the name of Mark
Wentworth was guarded by Christina warranted this. Indeed she trembled
a little as she imagined all Chrissie would say when this interview was
faithfully repeated.
“I will stay here, thank you,” Mr. Ambleton answered her, not very
amiably. He stood in the same place with his back to the fireplace, and
Polly looked at him a little hopelessly.
He was so big, and strong, and he looked so cross. It was a strange
thought to come, but she did hope he was not going to worry her little
mother. Her heart sank at his demeanor.
“I will get you a newspaper,” she was beginning again, nervously, when
the door opened and Chrissie and her mother appeared.
Polly effected an introduction with pretty awkwardness.
“This is Mr. Valentine Ambleton, mother darling. He is a cousin of Sir
Mark Wentworth’s, and he wishes to see you very particularly.”
“I will not detain you more than a few moments,” Ambleton broke in
curtly, as he glanced half compassionately at Mrs. Pennington, and
then turned his eyes in a scathing sort of fashion upon Christina.
“I would offer you an apology for coming, only that I consider the
circumstances of the case warrant my being here. I may as well state
that I have a kind of responsibility in connection with my Cousin Mark,
and on this ground I am here to-day to protest against this marriage
with your daughter. Stay, hear me out,” the young man continued, half
sternly, as Mrs. Pennington uttered a faint exclamation, “for your
daughter I can have no feeling of antagonism, since she is a stranger
to me; but as a woman whose life may be utterly marred, I have felt
it my duty to put plain facts before her and her parents. My cousin,
Mark Wentworth, is no fit husband for any young girl, since apart from
other and most potent objections, he is a man whose tendencies under
the influence of drink are dangerous in the fullest sense of the word.
Had I been in England this summer I would have taken proper precautions
to prevent Miss Pennington from standing in the position she occupies
to-day.”
Polly had turned to leave the room when he had first commenced to
speak, but his words held her rooted to the spot, and now she had
moved back to her mother’s side and had slipped her hand into Mrs.
Pennington’s cold one.
Never had she seen her mother’s face wear such a look as was written on
it now.
It was Christina who answered him.
She was very pale, more like a white statue than a living woman, and
her voice had a tone in it that Polly had never heard from her lips
before.
“We thank you, Mr. Ambleton, my parents and I, for your wonderful
kindness in burdening yourself with such a disagreeable duty, and,
having thanked you, we have no more to say.”
Valentine Ambleton looked at her, and his lips curled.
“I see,” he said, in a low, quick tone, “I have made a mistake.”
“You have done more than made a mistake,” Christina Pennington said,
coldly; “you have been guilty of intrusion, and unpardonable rudeness.
I think the matter may rest there.”
He bent his head and moved away, but the mother, who had been a stunned
listener to this conversation, suddenly realized all it meant.
“You must not go. You—you have given me a great shock. My husband and
I—Polly, dear, run away—why are you here? This must not rest at such
a point,” Mrs. Pennington said, conquering her agitation with dignity,
“we must investigate the matter.”
Then a revelation was wrought in poor little Polly’s knowledge of her
best loved sister’s nature.
Christina suddenly flashed crimson.
“There shall be no investigation,” she said, in a choked, angry
voice, “I am Mark Wentworth’s promised wife, and I shall marry
him whatever his cousin may say against him. I have known of your
mischief-making propensities, and I have been warned against you,” she
said passionately, looking directly into the man’s eyes. “It is well
understood by now how jealous you are of Mark’s position, and how you
hate him—how you have always hated him. It was a clever trick to come
here and try to work harm with me, but you have failed, Mr. Ambleton,
you have failed absolutely. My parents have no power to urge or control
me. I am twenty-four years of age, and permit no one to interfere in my
life. My word is pledged to Mark Wentworth, and I shall be his wife.”
Valentine Ambleton heard these bitter words to the end. Polly, obeying
her mother, had crept toward the door, but Chrissie had spoken so
quickly, all was said before the girl could pass out.
She paused with fast beating heart to look back at the little scene, at
her mother’s anguished face and Chrissie’s hard, stony one, and as her
sister ceased speaking, she saw a wave of pity mingle with the contempt
expressed on Valentine Ambleton’s face, and his earnestly spoken,
low-voiced response caught her ears.
“Then may God help you!” he said, and Polly paused no more, but shut
the door after her, and ran hurriedly up the stairs to her own room.
She caught the sound of the big hall door close with a sharp bang as
she reached the corner that was her only place of retreat.
She realized, as she sat down in a chair, that her heart was beating
painfully, and that her limbs seemed suddenly feeble and useless.
Christina’s voice, Christina’s words, and her mother’s white, hopeless
misery kept a tragedy alive in her heart.
She felt as if some cruel thing had come suddenly upon her, cutting her
apart forever from the old sunny life of her childhood. For Polly had
looked on a truth, she had seen into her dearly loved sister’s heart,
and she had recoiled in her young innocence from the story she saw
written there. How often, oh! how often only this very morning she had
stood her ground manfully, and fought Winifred’s cold, quiet attacks on
Chrissie’s nature.
“You think her an angel,” Winifred had said, barely two hours before.
“Well, think it if you like, but I cannot be expected to be so silly.
Chrissie is just as selfish as she is pretty. Do you know that she
had fifty pounds this morning from Grandmother Pennington, and do you
suppose she will offer to share one of those fifty pounds with us?”
Winifred had laughed quietly. “She will put it away in a box or spend
it on her own back. Oh! Chrissie is no angel, I can tell you!”
“She is my darling sister, and I love her,” had been Polly’s only
argument. “I don’t know anything about any fifty pounds, but I do know
that if Chrissie ever dreams we want anything she will give it to us at
once.”
“Will she?” queried Winifred, as she had risen to go down to her
practicing. “If Chrissie ever has a farthing she can call her own, she
will keep it for herself, you see if she doesn’t.”
Polly had retorted with some hot word of reproach and loyalty mingled,
and then she had gone down to her task of cutting the dead leaves and
watering the plants, and she had quickly dismissed Winifred’s words
as being only a part of that jealousy toward Chrissie that was made a
little more patent to Polly each day.
But Winifred’s curt, sharp definition of her elder sister came back to
poor little Polly in this moment of startled pain and self-communion;
a veil seemed to slip from her eyes, and she saw Chrissie as she had
never seen her before. Her indignation against the man who had brought
such a sudden change in the atmosphere of her home would have been very
deep had she not had ringing in her ears those few last words he had
spoken, that sentence fraught with a pity too deep to be expressed.
The entrance of Winifred, her usually calm manner quite moved and
excited, called Polly back from her thoughts.
“We are to go down to luncheon by ourselves,” Winnie said. “Mother is
ill, and Chrissie has gone out, and Jane says some one came, and there
has been some sort of a scene. I want to know all about it.”
Polly brushed her hair savagely.
“I am so hungry I could eat a bear!” she said, and so saying she pushed
past Winifred and ran out of the room. Not from her lips should anyone
hear aught that was hurtful to one who had been so dear to her, and
was still so dear. That was the keynote of Polly’s nature—love and
loyalty; a clinging faith which not even proof could well upset.
* * * * *
Valentine Ambleton drove directly to a railway station on leaving the
Penningtons’ house. His sister was waiting for him; she was very like
him—tall, handsome, frank-looking. She wore a well-cut traveling gown,
and had two dogs beside her, carefully held by a strap.
“You are a little late, dear,” she said, but she smiled as she said it.
Valentine busied himself by getting her and the dogs and the luggage
into the train before he explained what had detained him.
When they were seated in the railway carriage he did so.
“I am afraid you will give me a scolding, Grace. I have disobeyed you.”
Grace Ambleton looked at him keenly.
“You have seen Miss Pennington?”
He nodded his head.
“Well, Val?”
“It is not very well, my dear. Miss Pennington beat me off the ground,
and made me look what I suppose I was, an intrusive fool. My good
intention bore very bad fruit.”
“I am sorry you went,” Grace said, after a little pause. “I know you
felt it was your duty, but, after all, I never thought with you on this
subject. I was quite sure Miss Pennington knew perfectly well what sort
of a man Mark was, and would not be moved by what you had to tell her.
You must not forget how rich Mark is, and that he has a title. There
are, I fear, many women like this one, who will accept these things, no
matter what evils are attached to them. She is pretty, I suppose?”
Valentine was stroking the Irish terrier’s head.
“She is quite beautiful, and I fell in love with the mother, a gentle,
worn creature, whose face showed me her heart was of a different
construction to her daughter’s; but she had no control. She is a
nominal guardian, as I am with Mark. Miss Pennington put forward her
independence very clearly.”
“What class of people are they?”
“Of our own class. I heard something of the father from old Bulwer this
morning. He is a merchant hovering on the verge of ruin. The house
looked poor,” Valentine said. “It made me sorry somehow, and I was more
sorry still when I got outside and realized what a miserable thing
human nature is. I had difficulty in being admitted at first, and a
young girl, a regular little spitfire, entertained me till her mother
came. I suppose you will see something of these people in the future,
Grace, since we are to be near neighbors of Sunstead. Naturally, if the
daughter is to be Lady Wentworth, the family will be on the scene.”
“I don’t think I care to know them,” Grace Ambleton said, frankly.
And after this the subject dropped, and Valentine opened the newspaper,
and settled himself in his corner to read.
His thoughts wandered a good deal, however, and the vision of a certain
worn woman’s face haunted him.
He had conceived an immediate liking for Mrs. Pennington.
“Poor woman! she has heavy troubles to come, if what I hear is true,
and she cannot hope for much love and consolation from her eldest
daughter. It is to be hoped the little brown maiden will be more
satisfactory. She can hit out straight, anyhow,” he mused to himself,
with a faint smile, “and I rather like her for that. She is pretty,
too,” he added, as an afterthought, and this thought arose as a very
clear remembrance of Polly’s strange, lovely eyes came to his mind.
They remained a memory for a few seconds, and then they faded away,
but Polly and her wonderful eyes were destined to be brought back to
Valentine Ambleton’s memory before very long.