[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: "'My dear,' says Lady Etwynde to Lauraine, as she sits
in the boudoir of the latter, 'your roses looked charming.'" (Chapter
IX.)]
TWO BAD BLUE EYES
By
"RITA"
Author of "Joan and Mrs. Carr," "Darby and Joan,"
"Vivienne," etc.
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON, MELBOURNE AND TORONTO
TWO BAD BLUE EYES
CHAPTER I
It is Lauraine Douglas' wedding-day.
A delicious gleam of sunshine streams through the curtained
windows--flickers over the dainty arrangements of the toilet-table,
loses itself in the white wonders of lace, linen, and embroidery
strewed about in different directions, and finally wanders to a dusky
head on the pillows, and plays at hide and seek over the closed
eyelids of a very lovely face.
The eyelids open--quite suddenly, quite wakefully--not with any
half-and-half preparation--any symptom of sleepiness.
The inquisitive sunbeam has done its work, and retreats bashfully now
as two white arms are thrown suddenly up and placed beneath the
girl's head, and resting thus she takes a survey of the mysterious
garments, the pretty room, the aspect of the weather, as promised by
the wealth of prodigal sunlight, and, finally, the clock on the
opposite chimney-piece.
"My wedding-day!"--so ran her thoughts.
"Only a few hours more and I am Lauraine Douglas no longer! Only a
few hours and the old life and the things of it are done and past for
ever--for ever. How strange it seems to think of that now! ... My
wedding-day! ... How different I thought it would be once. How
different I thought I should feel. Oh, Keith! Keith! what an old,
far-away dream that looks. I suppose you have long ago forgotten it.
And yet how we loved each other ... you and I! A boy-and-girl fancy,
my mother calls it. Well, perhaps, it was; it is long enough since I
heard from him, and I suppose he has long forgotten me. I wonder if
he has made the fortune he spoke of yet? But what on earth makes me
think of these things to-day, of all days? ... And so it really is my
wedding-day at last! I wonder how most girls feel on their
wedding-day! I can't say I feel in any way different--no stir, or
flutter, or anticipation of any description. I am glad it is going
to be fine, and how nice to be able to wear _real_ orange blossoms!
Sir Francis was very good to send them. I wonder if I shall ever
think of him and call him anything but _Sir_ Francis. Somehow I
never can. I wish he was not so old--old, at least, for me, and I
wish he did not love me in quite such a fierce, wild fashion. I seem
to have been quite swept off my feet by the current of his passion
and my mother's persuasions.... After all, I suppose one must be
married some time or other ... only--only----"
She breaks off with a sudden sigh, and sits up in the bed, pushing
off the thick, dusky hair from her brows with an impatient gesture.
"It is no use deceiving myself. I am going to be married and I
_hate_ the thought, and how I have been dragged into it I scarcely
know. Sometimes I think I should never have yielded.... How oddly
one drifts into things! ... And Sir Francis is so infatuated, and it
seemed no use saying 'No.' I wish he were not so jealous. I can't
understand the feeling myself. I wonder what it's like? Not
pleasant by any means, if I am to judge by my future lord and master.
Will he be my master, I wonder? How I should hate to be ordered
about, and kept in check, and ruled! Mamma is bad enough, in all
conscience; but, still, I have managed to get my own way with her,
pretty often. How she has badgered me about this marriage, and what
a desperate hurry they have been in to get it off! Heigho! only a
month since I bartered my liberty for--for--ahem!--shall I go over
all 'the good gifts that crown me queen' of this much-sought-after
baronet? Unencumbered estates, magnificent income, ancient
family--pooh! how sickening it is! After all, what do I care for
these things? One comfort is, I go to him heart-whole. No
sentiments in the background, no lovers to moan and fret over. I
wonder if I am really cold-hearted, or if I never shall fall in love?
Gracious! what am I saying? That folly must be over after 11.30
to-day. I suppose the nearest approach to it was that boy-and-girl
romance with Keith. Poor old Keith! What a nice boy he was, and
what a dare-devil, impetuous, headstrong sort of fellow! No
milk-and-water lover he--a regular torrent of impetuosity, bearing
one along, whether one would or no. I suppose he has forgotten me
though, and no wonder. How rude mamma was to him, and how delighted
when he turned his back on the Old World and went off to the New! I
suppose if I ever see him again he will be a regular Yankee, and talk
like that dreadful woman, Mrs. Bradshaw B. Woollffe, as she calls
herself. And she will be at the breakfast, after all! Mamma _would_
ask her. Heavens! how she does worship money! But I suppose that
comes of having had so little all her life."
A little sleepy yawn comes in here, then the pretty head turns away
from the sunlight, and nestles itself among the pillows again. But
it is no use to woo sleep any longer. The eyes remain open, and the
brain is busy with thoughts, until at eight o'clock a knock at the
door is followed by the entrance of a maid, with hot water and
letters. The girl sits up and stretches out her hands for the
latter--just two. She holds them a moment, and looks hesitatingly at
the superscription.
"The last time I shall see that name," she murmurs, half aloud, as
she reads the "Miss Douglas" that has been her nomenclature for
twenty years of her life. "Heigho! it makes me sad to think of it,
after all.... Yes, Jane, draw up the blind. A fine morning? Well,
of course, I can see that. No, I don't want anything more. You can
go till I ring."
Left alone, she opens the letters. The first is apparently of little
interest, and is tossed carelessly aside. The second--at the first
line she starts and flushes as red as a June rose; then with eager
eyes reads on with devouring speed till the end. It is not a very
long letter, but it seems to agitate her in no small degree.
"How strange!" she says. "After all these years--and to-day, of all
days! What on earth am I to do?"
She grows very white, and for some moments leans back on the snowy
pillows, with her breath coming fitfully and unevenly, and her eyes
looking sad and troubled. Then with a great effort she rises and
puts the letter aside, and proceeds with her morning toilette.
She is standing before the mirror in a loose white dressing-gown, her
long rich hair hanging loosely about her, when the door opens and a
lady enters.
A very handsome, stately lady, with sufficient likeness to the girl
to suggest their relationship; but the soft curved lips of the young
face are thin and cold in the older one, and the eyes, though
brilliant, still lack the softness and tenderness that give so great
a charm to those of Lauraine.
"Up and dressed, my darling!" she says, in clear, sweet tones. Then
she comes near to the girl and kisses her effusively on both cheeks.
"Will you come to my boudoir for breakfast?" she continues. "I made
Henriette dress my hair first, so that you can have all her attention
afterwards. What a barbarous custom to have weddings so early in the
day! You look very well, dear; just a trifle pale, but that is quite
correct for a bride." Then she kisses her again, and Lauraine
submits to the caresses with a sort of passive contempt. There is no
gladness on her face, nor in her eyes, and she has certainly grown
very pale, but the pallor only makes the beautiful eyes more wistful,
and the sweet red lips more exquisite in contrast.
The girl is tall and slender, with delicately-cut features, and a
wealth of dusky gold-brown hair, and a clear, creamy skin, that shows
every trace of the coursing blood as it flows beneath. It warms
suddenly now, with a brilliant flush, as she meets her mother's eyes
and listens to her words. The white slender hand moves to the
toilet-table, and takes from amidst its glittering array a letter
lying there.
"Mother," she says suddenly, "whom do you think I have heard from
this morning? An old friend of ours."
Mrs. Douglas looks a little startled just for a moment. Then she
smiles sweetly.
"I am a bad hand at guessing, love. Pray tell me, if it is of any
importance."
Lauraine looks full at her, still holding the letter in her hand.
"It is from--Keith," she says calmly.
"From Mr. Athelstone!" remarks Mrs. Douglas calmly, but a little
nervous agitation is visible on her face. "Dear me! I thought he
had long forgotten us!"
"So did I," answers Lauraine, glancing for an instant at the
superscription.
"But he has not. You never told me that he had written to you,
mamma, three months ago."
"To me! Did he really?" and Mrs. Douglas colours ever so little. "I
forgot all about it. Yes, now you mention it, he did write me--some
nonsense about his prospects, and how they were improving. Nothing
to interest me, or you either. I think you were away."
"I was not away at the time," says Lauraine quietly; "and any news
from Keith would have interested me. But I suppose you thought it
best to--forget."
Mrs. Douglas looks slightly uncomfortable. "Dear me, Lauraine," she
says pettishly, "what are you making such a fuss for? Keith was a
very nice boy, and all that; but you are both grown up now, and that
brother-and-sister business couldn't go on for ever. What does he
say in that letter? Is he still in Chicago?"
"He is in England," answers Lauraine, still very quietly; "and he has
been left an immense fortune by some rich, eccentric old Yankee, who
took a great fancy to him. Also, he is coming here this morning to
call on us. He is anxious to see me after four years' absence."
Mrs. Douglas turns suddenly very white. Her eyes flash their eager
scrutiny at her daughter's face.
"What nonsense! Here--and to-day? It is impossible. I must send a
message."
"Stay, mother." The girl lays her hand on her mother's arm, and her
voice trembles a little. "Don't send any message. Let him come. He
will be here just when we come back from the church.
"I should like to see my old playmate, and receive his
congratulations on such a day as this. We were always like brother
and sister, you know. He will be delighted with my future prospects,
I am sure--though I feel rather like the servants who leave an old
place 'to better themselves,' and are not quite sure how they will
get on in the new. Oh, do let him come! It is just the one thing
wanting to make my wedding perfect."
Mrs. Douglas looks at her with puzzled wonder. "I don't quite
understand you," she says uncomfortably. "You really wish Keith
Athelstone to come here, knowing nothing of the altered
circumstances? It will be horribly unpleasant. There will be a
scene, and you know I detest scenes. They are such bad form."
"There will be no scene," Lauraine says very quietly. "I think you
know me better than that. And it is the last thing I ask of you,
before I leave your house to-day. Let him come."
She speaks calmly enough, but a feverish flush glows in her cheek,
and her eyes look up at her mother's face more in command than in
entreaty.
"Oh! if you put it like that," Mrs. Douglas says, with a pretty
pretence of feeling that Lauraine regards with scornful amusement, "I
cannot deny you. Let it be so, then. I only hope he will behave
himself. He was always so dreadfully impetuous and hot-headed. That
Spanish mother of his is to blame for that. Well, my darling, it is
a charming day for your wedding, and if you are ready for breakfast
come down to my boudoir. You will find me there. By the way, would
you mind giving me that letter to read? I should like to see what he
says."
Lauraine hands it to her, and an odd little smile comes over her lips.
"If we had not been _quite_ so much like brother and sister," she
says, "and if you hadn't been quite so determined to marry me this
season, Keith would have been a pretty good match after all."
Mrs. Douglas gives her a sharp glance of scrutiny. "You are not
foolish enough to regret this boy," she says. "He could never be
such a match as Sir Francis."
"Regret! Why should I regret?" says the girl, turning away with a
shrug of her pretty shoulders. "Regret and I parted company long
ago."
And Mrs. Douglas leaves the room comforted, even if a little puzzled
by her daughter's odd conduct.
"Lauraine was always extraordinary," she says, seating herself in her
boudoir to commence the perusal of this unwelcome letter. "How
thankful I am that I have secured so excellent a future for her! I
really thought, at one time I could do nothing with her. She is so
very odd in some things. However, Sir Francis will have to manage
her now; she's off my hands, thank goodness! It is a pity he is such
a brute; but then he is such a good match, and I am so fearfully in
debt. How on earth I am to pay for the trousseau I don't know; and
nowadays it's not every man who will take a girl without a penny."
Then she gives a sigh of relief, and takes her chocolate from
Henriette, and settles herself comfortably in her chair to the
perusal of this inopportune letter. As she reads it her brow clouds.
She throws it down at last with an angry exclamation. "How horribly
unfortunate it should have come to-day! Still, it's a mercy it did
not come sooner. What a worry this boy has always been to me! First
left to my husband's guardianship, and by his death to mine; then all
that nonsense with Lauraine years ago, and the trouble I had to stop
it; and now he turns up rich and independent, and, I suppose, in love
still, though he doesn't say that. What on earth will he say about
my keeping back that letter three months ago? But it was such
nonsense, and it would have spoiled my scheme entirely. I hope to
goodness Lauraine has forgotten him; she seemed to take it very
quietly. Only when they meet it will really be very awkward. Dear
me! I shall need all my self-possession to prevent an _esclandre_.
I must try and see him first and alone. I suppose he has learnt to
control himself a little by this time. Poor boy! after all he was
very nice; and what a handsome face--and those eyes! They would coax
anything out of one, really. 'Bad blue eyes,' his old nurse used to
call them. Poor old thing! she will go out of her mind with delight
at the bare thought of seeing him again. I had better send Lauraine
to tell her. Ah! here she comes."
Lauraine enters, paler than ever, and her mother glances somewhat
anxiously at the pretty, daintily-spread breakfast-table. Certainly
the poverty Mrs. Douglas speaks of is not outwardly visible in any of
the appointments or surroundings of the house in Grosvenor Street.
Poverty, according to the ideas of fashionable ladies, seems an
extraordinary compound of selfish desires and inability to be wildly
extravagant.
"Here is your letter, dear," she says to Lauraine. "Really quite a
stroke of luck for poor Keith; I am more than delighted about it.
Perhaps, after all, it is as well he should come here at once, so
after breakfast just run upstairs and tell old nurse. She will be
overjoyed at the good news. And now you really must eat something.
You look very pale, and I want you to be spoken of as the prettiest
bride of the season."
Lauraine's lips curl scornfully, but she says nothing, only in her
heart she thinks, "I hope few brides feel as I do to-day!"