A few days later Mrs. West stood in the crowd on the platform at
Jersey City awaiting a train from the West, and holding in her hand
a handkerchief of azure silk, of which the duplicate was to be waved
by her arriving charge. Her heart beat with an excitement it had not
known for long.
She had not many moments of uncertainty. Even without the blue banner
that bore down upon her in the hands of the prettiest creature in the
throng, she would have recognized the original of the picture.
Miss Cecily Mordaunt, beaming with complacency, was attended by a
man--gaunt, middle-aged, uncouth, with every sign of adoration of his
companion written upon his countenance.
“You--you have got your maid?” asked Gwendolyn, peering about in
search of that natural protector.
“Maid? Never had such a thing in my life,” laughed Cecily. “And what
would ha’ been the use, when Mr. Lenvale would insist upon escorting
me every step of the way. We stopped in Chicago two hours, and took
a hack and drove round to see the sights. I never was so surprised to
see any one as Mr. Lenvale. He stole a march on the others, and sat
in the smoking car, and came in to join me when East Ephesus was well
out of sight. It almost seemed as if I had to have him, to carry all
that truck.”
“That truck” was an assortment of faded flowers, bonbons, boxes, and
baskets of fruit--with railway reading enough to stock a stall.
“They kept bringing it until the train moved off. Papa made me
promise none of them should come along, but I couldn’t help Mr.
Lenvale, could I, now?”
“I have a carriage waiting on the other side of the ferry. We shall
ask Mr. Lenvale to put your belongings into that, and then we shall
not trouble him further,” said Gwendolyn, in her soft, articulate
voice. Poor Lenvale, although she smiled kindly, saw that his doom
was sealed.
“He’s a fright, isn’t he?” said heartless Cecily as they drove away
uptown. “I’m really tired to death of him; but it wouldn’t do exactly
to let him know. When I saw you holding that blue handkerchief my
heart was in my mouth with surprise. You look about as old as I am,
or a very little older. ‘Thank goodness she’s young and pretty, and
how well her clothes fit!’ I said to Mr. Lenvale. When papa told me
about you I cried for twenty-four hours without stopping, and all the
girls came round to sympathize. I supposed you were a prim old party,
with a whalebone back. Look here, now. Would you mind my kissing you?”
A week later they sailed for Genoa. Gwendolyn had engaged to
attend them a courier-maid, certified against sea-sickness, and as
possessing phenomenal accomplishments in the science of hotel bills
and tips.
Senator Mordaunt, just then held in the vise of an important
committee of inquiry over which he presided, had agreed to run
over on a night train, breakfast with his daughter, see her off on
the steamer, then hurry back to Washington. But at breakfast time
arrived, instead of the Senator, a telegram, at sight of which Cecily
first stamped her foot, then cried.
“I knew it! I have always had telegrams when I wanted my father
most,” she said between her sobs. “He can’t get off, so sends me his
blessing, and his compliments to you. Who wants to be blessed by
telegraph?”
She was such a big, healthy, buoyant, fun-making being it was
impossible to think of her as one who could suffer seriously or long,
but Mrs. West saw that she loved her father, and that during a day
or two of the voyage she lamented for him in silence.
It was rough off the coast, the skies dull, the company depressed.
Gwendolyn lay most of this time in her berth, committing Cecily to
the care of the courier-maid, and feeling too reckless of outer
things even to read the letter from Washington marked “private and
confidential” that had come aboard by special delivery as the ship
was about to leave the dock. She had seen that it was from Mordaunt,
and was full of injunctions about his daughter. It would keep.
On the afternoon of the third day out, the skies had cleared,
sunshine fell warm and bright across the decks, there was a faint,
sweet, far-away promise of spring in the light and steady breeze.
The cabin passengers, to a man, woman, and child, felt its reviving
influence. Creeping up on deck, Gwendolyn nestled into her chair,
looked lazily across the rail, and bethought her of her letter.
After she had finished it she sat wondering. For the first time she
realized the magnitude of her task. This was the cry of a strong
man’s heart for the right guidance and protection of his only child.
Too late had come to him consciousness of the fact that Cecily had
been left to environments that had done her mischief. She had been
on the verge of running away to marry a Mr. Parker Moffat, a crack
baseball player, a young man encouraged by her silly, sentimental
aunt.
The one worth talking about among her admirers--who made her the
acknowledged sovereign of hearts in East Ephesus--had been flouted
by her so successfully that it was hardly likely Angus McCrea would
ever present himself to Mrs. West’s notice. Should he do so, he was
the sole representative of her ‘home guard’ whom Mordaunt would be
willing for Cecily to receive. Any overture from Moffat Mrs. West
must incontinently quash.
And he is my “obliged and faithful J. Mordaunt,” quoth Gwendolyn.
“Well, I feel as if I had brought an explosive machine on board. I am
afraid my charge is nothing more or less than an incorrigible flirt.”
The rest of the voyage proved this indubitably. From the captain,
who had her seated at table at his left hand, to the officers, great
and petty, the deck stewards, the sailors with swabs, and the little
cabin boys, every male thing belonging to the good ship was at Miss
Mordaunt’s beck and call.
The unmarried men among the passengers--including a missionary going
out to Asia Minor, a German Baron, a magnate of Wall Street nursing
a weak lung, a silk merchant from lower Broadway, two artists, and a
popular young author--surrounded her chair, like a swarm of bees. The
married men did the same whenever they were released from supervision
by their wives; but it was a remarkably tranquil voyage, and the
women were ordinarily all on deck.
Gwendolyn’s sense of propriety suffered under such fierce publicity.
Miss Mordaunt’s sayings and doings were bandied everywhere. The
people aboard who were previously known to Mrs. West set afloat the
story that her comet was a cousin or niece going to join her family.
Most of these good folk thought it would be a happy day for Mrs. West
when she could surrender her charge and fold her hands in repose.
Vigilance--perpetual vigilance--was evidently to be the price of
Gwendolyn’s peace. The overwhelming spirits, the reckless sayings,
the audacious doings of Cecily began at breakfast time and ended not
till Gwendolyn forced her to go below at bedtime. And the distressing
part of it was that the chaperon found herself, too, laughing at the
girl’s nonsense--giggling helplessly, irrepressibly. Cecily affected
her like champagne or St. Moritz air.
At Gibraltar Miss Mordaunt said she was going to cable to her papa.
When they were off again in the Mediterranean she threw her arms
around Gwendolyn’s neck and admitted that she had cabled to some one
else besides papa. No coaxings could induce her to say more than
this, and Gwendolyn felt uncomfortable. At Genoa the girl received
two cable messages, sent in care of the captain of the ship, who
delivered them to her with massive gallantry.
From that moment it seemed that Cecily’s spirit of mischief had
broken loose worse than before. Mrs. West and the courier-maid, both
of them secretly devoted to her, were kept forever on the alert to
watch her vagaries. Upon the tourist track of Europe she left behind
her a corruscating trail of anecdotes.
As the summer progressed Gwendolyn resigned herself to being a marked
woman, as the guardian of the most original young person who had
appeared in the best-known haunts in a generation. It was marvelous
to see how Cecily’s slang, loud speaking and dressing, and petty
offenses against good breeding had dropped away from her. The outer
shell of her became conventional, but that was all.
* * * * *
When the handsome and well-born Marquis de San Miniato followed them
to Luzerne, and asked Mrs. West for the hand of her charming charge
in marriage, Gwendolyn felt herself pulled up as with too hard a curb.
“Of course you will not consider him,” she said, much more confused
than was the heroine of the hour.
“I _was_ thinking a little of getting married in Italy in the fall,”
answered Miss Mordaunt, pensively. “A wedding would be so sweet in
that lovely old Duomo at Florence. And I couldn’t have it in the
Duomo unless I married a Catholic, I suppose.”
“Cecily!”
“Gwen, dear, you can’t do it. You haven’t the cut of a chaperon’s
jib. Why, San Miniato took us first for a pair of schoolgirls, and
Mimms for our governess. You’re a failure, and I’m a terror; but we
_have_ had a good time, haven’t we?”
“Cecily, your father--I have an idea he would dislike this more than
anything you could do. Don’t, don’t answer Miniato now. Let me tell
him to go to America and see your papa. That is the only decent thing
to do.”
“The others--all but one--asked _me_ first,” said Cecily, dimpling.
“But it’s a shame to tease you, poor, dear little soul. Send Miniato
packing, if you like. I don’t generally--right away. I keep them on
as friends, like poor Mr. Lenvale, till I can’t stand them a minute
longer. Anyhow, old Miniato’s a goose to think I’d marry out of my
own country and live away from papa.”
Gwendolyn had the tact to say nothing. In a moment Cecily began again.
“You’ve been so awfully good to me, Gwenny. If I had had a mother,
I’d have wanted her to be like you. But my mother died when I was
born, and I had no one but an aunt and grandmother, who--papa,
couldn’t get along with them, and I don’t blame him. He has been
awfully generous--but kept away. You know he has made money himself,
but he inherited a lot from his mother’s brother on condition he’d
change his name. The Mordaunts were an older family than the Atwells,
and my uncle didn’t want them to die out--”
“Atwell! It can’t be possible!” cried Gwendolyn, “John Rufus Atwell?”
“Yes, that was his full name. Did you ever know him?”
“Once, long ago,” said Gwendolyn, in a maze of astonishment.
“I want to tell you a secret--if you won’t ask me a single question
in return,” went on the girl, filled with her own affairs. “Although
not to San Miniato, I am really going to be married. I’ve left my
heart, my real heart, at home, with the best fellow in the world.
When I got to Gibraltar I kept a promise I’d made to him, and cabled
out that he might come to us in September. By the time we get to
Paris he’ll be there, and then, Gwenny, then--oh! You’ll be a jolly,
easy-going chaperon, and I the happiest girl in the world. Now
I’m off to take Mimms for a perfectly horrid little walk, to see
Thorwaldsen’s Lion. If I ever get home to blessed East Ephesus I’ll
walk out by myself after dark, see if I don’t.”
Gwendolyn’s face, when she was left alone with these surprising
revelations, was very pale. After deliberation she took out a cable
code Mr. Mordaunt had sent her for exigencies, and patched together
words conveying the following message:
“Fear daughter’s intention to marry. Had better come at once. Meet
us Paris. Will watch faithfully till then.”
* * * * *
They had found refuge from observation in a quiet and cozy little
hotel just out of the Champs Élysées. For some days following their
arrival in Paris Cecily had been under a spell of gentleness. She did
not again allude to her hopes and prospects, and Gwendolyn, trusting
the matter had blown by, said nothing, but never left her side.
Cecily did not know that her father was expected. It had been agreed
between Mordaunt and his daughter’s chaperon to give his visit the
air of a happy afterthought.
When the day came that should bring relief to the citadel, Gwendolyn
breathed a long sigh. Soon after their early breakfast, Cecily asked
for the company of Mimms to make some purchases at the Bon Marché.
She had equipped herself so charmingly, her face and person breathed
such radiancy of good health and happiness, that Gwendolyn could not
resist giving the child a parting squeeze and kiss.
“I shall wait for you to go in to the second breakfast, dear,” she
said, affectionately.
“Ah, Gwen, how I love you!” cried the girl with a sudden burst.
“Never be angry with me; I was not brought up like other girls.”
She was gone. The little open cab containing her and the grim Miss
Mimms rattled down the stony street to the Elysian Fields. Gwendolyn
sighed.
“She has tangled herself in my heart-strings, certainly. I could not
bear her to think me treacherous. But my first duty was to _him_.”
As the hours passed she grew fidgety, rearranged the ornaments, the
flowers, the books, in their pretty salon--ran to the window to look
at many cabs, and when at last the one arrived that contained John
Mordaunt, was quite unaware of it.
He was treading on the heels of the garçon who came up to announce
him--in her presence before she realized it.
“I knew you long ago through Mrs. Payne; but you could not be
supposed to identify me,” he said, with strong feeling, as he took
her hand. “You have not changed in the least. And to think that all
these years I could not find out whom you had married.”
Gwendolyn blushed deeply, and drew her hand from his.
“It was so good of you to relieve my anxiety about our girl,” she
answered. “Now I begin to think she said it to frighten me.”
“No matter, since I am here. But where is she--my darling torment?”
Gwendolyn explained.
“Then sit down and let us learn each other all over again,” said this
taking-for-granted Senator.
Gwendolyn did not know why she obeyed; the moments flew, she telling,
he listening, and vice versa. They were rudely interrupted by the
bursting open of the door and the entrance of Miss Mimms, aghast.
“Oh! sir! Oh! m’m,” she cried, breathless. “I’ve lost her. For the
last hour I’ve been sitting in the waiting-room at the Bon Marché, as
she bid me, and she’s never come back. And at last a little boy came
and put this note in my hand for Mrs. West, and told me the young
lady said I was to go along home to the hotel.”
“My own Gwenny, forgive me,” ran the note. “I couldn’t bear to meet
him in a horrid, ordinary way. We are off on top a tram to take
our luncheon at Versailles, and by five o’clock, I’ll be back and
introduce him to you in proper fashion.”
“If it’s that scoundrel Moffat, he’ll never bring her back,” shouted
John Mordaunt. “He well knows she has a fortune from her uncle
coming to her on her marriage with no matter whom. He’ll get her
off somewhere and manage to have a ceremony performed before he is
interrupted. He--”
“I believe in Cecily,” said Gwendolyn, quietly. “Let us, you and I,
Mr. Mordaunt, go directly in pursuit of them. Cecily is foolish,
reckless, but she would never give you--and me--that pain.”
“Then it is you who have made her know herself! God bless you,” said
the agitated man. “Ah! Gwendolyn, why did I not have you from the
first?”
* * * * *
Miss Mimms afterward averred that you might have knocked her down
with a feather when, that afternoon, the whole party of four came
driving up to the door of the hotel. (Miss M. had spent most of her
day suspended like a banner for royalty out of the windows of the
first floor.) He, the young lady’s papa--looking like a general or a
judge, she couldn’t exactly say which, but as fine a show of a man as
she wished ever to see; Mrs. West, so happy and smiling, just like a
little girl that has got a present she’d been crying for; and Miss
Mordaunt--well, nobody could beat her for looks and pretty ways. At
the very top of the steps didn’t she seize Mimms and hug her, and
introduce her to “Mr. Angus McCrea, the young man that ran away with
me this morning, and that’s going to be my husband”?
For Mr. Angus McCrea it was who had wooed Cecily’s roving heart into
his safe-keeping--a fine, manly young fellow, to whom even John
Mordaunt, the discourager of sons-in-law, could not take exception.
“And at any rate,” whispered saucy Cecily, “it’s easy to see they
were old sweethearts, Gwen and papa. They are so taken up with each
other, Angus, you and I might give them a lesson in self-control.”
PRINTED BY R. R. DONNELLEY
AND SONS COMPANY AT THE
LAKESIDE PRESS, CHICAGO, ILL.
* * * * * *
Transcriber’s note:
The List of Illustrations at the beginning of the book was created
by the transcriber.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation such as “whale-bone”/“whalebone”
have been maintained.
Minor punctuation and spelling errors have been silently corrected
and, except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the
text, especially in dialogue, and inconsistent or archaic usage,
have been retained.
Page 156: “upon which the three Misses Bendict” changed to “upon
which the three Misses Benedict”.
Page 201: “from what your mother writes, Lillian” changed to “from
what your mother writes, Lilian”.
Page 234: “grumbling inwardly, as he saw Kathleeen” changed to
“grumbling inwardly, as he saw Kathleen”.