Some people might have called Charley Vining a spoiled child, who had
had everything he wished for from his earliest days, and now, at the
first disappointment in life, was turning pettish and angry. True
enough so far, his every whim had been gratified, and perhaps this made
him feel the more bitterly that this newly-awakened desire should be
thwarted on every side.
Try what he would, all seemed against him--father, friends, even the
object of his choice herself; and he needed no one to tell him that the
greatest care was taken to prevent all interviews. That Laura had a
great deal to do with it he was sure, with out Nelly's confirmatory
words. Max too might have some influence; but it was in vain that he
thought--matters would only look more and more rugged on ahead; and at
length, longing, in spite of his dislike to the meeting, for the evening
to come, he cantered away.
"I only wish I were clever," he muttered. "Some men would scheme a
score of plans; but as for me, I understand horses and dogs, and that is
about--"
Charley's thoughts were directed the next moment into another channel;
for turning a corner sharply, he came upon a family party from the Elms,
consisting of Laura Bray and her two youngest sisters, with Max angrily
stamping, clenched of fist and with his face distorted with rage.
"It's all a confounded plot of yours, Laury--it is, bai Jove!" he
screamed in an excited voice, the very counterpart of his mother's.
"Indeed, indeed, Max, you wrong me," she cried. "It was not--Hush!
here's Charley Vining."
"How do, Miss Bray?" he said, reining in, and trying to be
cordial.--"Ah, Max, I thought you were in town.--Well, little ones, how
are you off for fruit?"
"Nelly's going to have lots to-night," said Do, the youngest "child;"
and the blood flushed up in Charley's face as he thought of the note he
had received,--for he was as transparent as a girl.
"Bai Jove! ya-a-s," said Max. "Been in town, but thought I'd run down
again for a bit."
"What for?" said Charley Vining's jealous heart, as he recalled the
excited way in which Max had been gesticulating before his sister.
Max looked half disposed to be sulky; but he caught a meaning glance
from Laura, when, feeling that he could not afford to fall off from his
part of the compact he had made with her, he commenced talking to his
youngest sister, just as Charley's eyes flashed, his nostrils distended,
and, evidently moved by some strong emotion, he leaped from his horse,
gazing eagerly the while at Max's watch-chain, and then at Max himself,
with a fierce questioning look; which the exquisite responded to with a
quiet self-satisfied smirk, ran his fingers along the chain, played with
the locket and other ornaments to it attached, and then, with a side
glance of insolent triumph, he thrust the little finger of his kid glove
into a ring which hung there, turned it about a few times, and then
walked on with the girls.
Charley Vining's heart felt as if something were making it contract, as
if he were seized by some fearful spasm; for that ring--he would swear
it--that ring had once encircled Ella Bedford's finger, and had lain in
his palm. He had noticed it particularly, as he had longed to press his
lips to the hand it graced--no, that graced the little bauble. What did
it mean, then?--what was Nelly's news that she had to communicate? He
could have groaned aloud as his heart whispered that he was--not
supplanted--but that that empty-headed conceited dandy had been able to
carry off the prize he had so earnestly sought--that heartless boasting
fop, who esteemed a woman's purest best feelings as deeply as he did the
quality of his last box of cigars. It was plain enough the ring was a
gift, and had been replaced by another.
"I _am_ a fool--a romantic boy!" thought Charley to himself; "and there
is no such thing as genuine passion and feeling in this world; at least,
I am not discriminating enough to know it. Here have I been grasping at
the shadow when I could have possessed the substance. But, O!" he
mentally groaned, "how sweet was that shadow, and how bitter is the
substance!"
"Have I offended you, Charley?" said a deep soft voice at his ear--a
voice trembling with emotion; and starting back to the present, the
muser saw that Max had walked on some yards in advance with the girls,
and that, with his horse's bridle over his arm, he was standing by
Laura, whose hand was half raised, as if ready to be laid upon his arm,
while her great dark eyes, swimming with tenderness, were gazing
appealingly in his.
There was something new in Laura's manner, something he had not seen
before. She was quiet, subdued, and timid; there was a tremulousness in
her voice; and with the feelings that agitated him then swaying him from
side to side, it was with a strange sense of trouble that he turned to
her, half flinching as he did so.
"Have I hurt your feelings in some way?" she said, for he did not reply,
and her voice was lower and deeper. "You seem so changed, so different,
and it grieves me more than you can think."
It was very dangerous. There had been a sudden discovery coming
directly upon Nelly's announcement that she had something grievous to
impart. He had evidently been looked upon as a rude uncultivated boor,
and this London exquisite had been preferred before him. In his poor
country ignorance, he had been looking upon Ella Bedford's words as the
utterances of a saint, gazing at her every act through a _couleur de
rose_ medium, till now, when he was rudely awakened from his simple
love-dream; while, as if offering balm for the wound, here was a
passionate loving woman talking, nay, breathing to him in whispers her
tender reproaches for what she evidently looked upon as his neglect.
What could he do? He felt that his faith to one he loved would be firm
as a rock; but he owed no allegiance--he had been played with--and this
woman to whom he had breathed his love had preferred gloss and polish to
his simple homely ways.
It was thus that Charley Vining reasoned with himself, as slightly
raising his arm he, as it were, made the first step towards a future of
trouble; for the next instant Laura's hand was laid gently upon that
arm, and they were sauntering slowly along. She, trembling and excited;
he, swayed by varied emotions--disappointment, rage, bitterness, and
added to all, the knowledge that he had left that gentle loving old man
heart-broken at his persistence in what he now owned to himself had been
a wild insane passion.
"You do not speak--you say nothing to me," said Laura softly, as she
turned slightly, so as to look in his face. "I must in some way have
unwittingly caused you annoyance. But there, Charley, I will not
dissemble; I know why you are angry, and I must speak. You will think
lightly of me--you will even sneer," she said, and he could see that the
tears were running down her cheeks, and that her breast heaved
painfully; "but I cannot help it; I must speak now that for once there
is an opportunity. You are vexed with me because I was so madly angry
with you for flirting. But you would not be, Charley, if you knew all.
I don't think you would willingly hurt any one; but thoughtless acts
sometimes give great pain."
Charley did not reply, but his arm trembled as they walked on, Laura's
passionate words being very truthful, as by a bold stroke she tried to
recover the ground she told herself that she had lost.
"See how humble I am. I never, that I can remember, asked pardon before
of any one, but I do of you; and I feel humbled and abased as I think,
for I know it is enough to make you mock at me. But though you refuse
to know my heart, I know yours well, and that it is too much that of a
gentleman for you ever to make me repent of what I say."
Still Charley was silent, though Laura paused to hear him speak. This
interview had been unexpected, and had come upon her by surprise; but,
led away by her feelings, words in torrents were pressing upon one
another ready to pour forth, and she had to struggle hard to keep those
words within due bounds, lest in her agitation she should make a broader
avowal than that already uttered, and cause him to turn from her in
disgust.
"Have I so deeply offended you? Can you not pardon me? Is mine such a
sin against you, Charley, that I am always to suffer--suffer more deeply
than you can believe?"
"I am not offended," he said gently. "Indeed, you mistake me."
"Charley!" she exclaimed in a burst of passionate emotion; for the soft,
gently-spoken words seemed to sweep away the barrier that she should
have more sternly supported--"I cannot help it; I am half heart-broken.
You have been cruel to me; you have maddened me into saying things, and
treating you in my rage in a way that has torn my own breast. But you
will forgive me--you will be to me as you were a few months back--and,
above all, promise me this, that you will not think lightly of me for
this. Indeed, indeed, I cannot, cannot help it; I--I--"
Laura's voice was choked by her passionate sobs; and trembling himself
with emotion, mingled of sorrow, pity, and an undefined sense of
tenderness evoked by what he had heard, Charley Vining was moved to say
a few words perhaps more warmly than under other circumstances he might
have done. He did not love Laura Bray--he almost disliked her; but if
there was any vanity in his composition, it was sure to be stirred now,
when a young and ardent woman was, in the most unmistakable terms,
telling him of her love, and imploring his forgiveness for her past
resentment.
Charley Vining was but human. His heart had been deeply torn; and in
spite of himself his voice softened, and he was about to say words that
might have been too sympathising in their nature, when Laura's eyes
flashed with bitterness and mortification. Had she possessed the power,
she would have turned her to stone where she stood; for, with a laugh
half merry, half sad, Nelly came running up, and pressing herself
between him and the horse, she caught hold of Charley's other arm.
Charley gave a sigh of relief, as rousing himself, he exclaimed, "ah,
Nelly!"
"I didn't mean to go for a walk," said Nelly; "but thought I'd come and
meet them; and I can't walk with Milly and Do, because of old Max; so
I've come here."
They say that two are company, three none: and if ever those words were
true, they were so here. But, in spite of her mortification, and the
agitation brought on by her imprudent avowal, Laura's heart bounded; for
she read, or thought she read, on parting, what she called her pardon in
Charley Vining's eyes.
Volume 2, Chapter IV.