THEO'S DIARY.
Up-stairs, in a sacred corner of the chamber Lady Throckmorton had
apportioned to her, Theodora North kept her diary. Not a solid,
long-winded diary, full of creditable reflections upon the day's events,
but, on the contrary, a harmless little book enough--a pretty little
book, bound in pink and gold, and much ornamented about the corners, and
greatly embellished with filagree clasps. Lady Throckmorton had given it
to her because she admired it, and, in a very natural enthusiasm, she
had made a diary of it. And here are the entries first recorded in its
gilt-edged pages:
_December_ 7.--Mr. Oglethorpe was so kind as to remember his promise
about showing me the lions. Enjoyed myself very much. Miss Priscilla
Gower went with us. She is very dignified, or something; but I think I
like her. I am sure I like her, so I will go to see her again. I wonder
how it is she reminds me of Pamela without being like Pamela at all.
Poor Pam always so sharp in her ways, and I do not think Miss Gower ever
could speak sharply at all. And yet she reminds me of Pam.
_December_ 14.--Went to the theatre again with Lady Throckmorton and Mr.
Oglethorpe. I wonder if the rose-pink satin is not becoming to me? I
thought it was; but before I went up-stairs to dress, Mr. Oglethorpe
said to me, "Don't put on the rose-pink satin, Theodora." I am sorry
that he does not think it is pretty. Wore a thin, white-muslin dress,
and dear, dearest old Pamela's beautiful sapphires. The muslin had a
long train.
_December_ 18.--Mr. Oglethorpe came to-night with a kind of message from
Miss Gower.
From these innocent extracts, persons of an unlimited experience might
draw serious conclusions; but when she made said entries, kneeling
before her toilet-table, each night, our dear Theodora thought nothing
about them at all. She had nothing else in particular to write about at
present, so, in default of finding a better subject, she jotted down
guileless remembrances of Denis Oglethorpe and the length of her trains.
But one memorable evening, on going into the sitting-room, with the pink
and gold volume in her hand, she encountered Sir Dugald, who seemed to
be in an extraordinary frame of mind, and withal nothing loth to meet
her.
"What pretty book have you there, Theodora?" he asked, in his usual
amiably uncivilized manner.
"It is my diary," Theo answered. "Lady Throckmorton gave it to me. I put
things down in it."
"Oh, oh!" was the reply, taking hold of both Sabre's ears, and
chuckling. "Put things down, do you? What sort of things do you put
down, eh, pretty Theodora? Lovers, eh? Literary men, eh?"
Theo grew pink all over--pink as to cheeks, pink as to slim white
throat, even pink as to small ears. She was almost frightened, and her
fright was of a kind such as she had never experienced before. But it
was not Sir Dugald she was afraid of--she was used to him. It was
something new of which she had never thought until this very instant.
"Literary men, eh?" Sir Dugald went on. "Do you put down what their
names are, and what they do, and how they make mistakes, and take the
wrong young lady to see Norma, and Faust and Il Trovatore? Il
Trovatore's a nice opera; Theo and Leonora sounds something like
Theodora. It doesn't sound anything like Priscilla, does it? The devil
fly away with Priscilla, I say. Priscilla isn't musical, is it,
Leonora?"
Once having freed herself from him, which was by no means an easy
matter, Theo flew up-stairs, tremulous, breathless, flushed. She did not
stop to think. She had seen the drawing-room empty and unlighted, save
by a dull fire, on her way down-stairs, so she turned to the
drawing-room. She had been conscious of nothing but Sir Dugald, so she
had not heard the hall-door open; and, not having heard the hall-door
open, had, of course, not heard Denis Oglethorpe come in. So, in running
into the fire-lit room, she broke in upon that gentleman, who was
standing in the shadow, and it must be confessed was rather startled by
her sudden entrance and curiously-excited face.
He stopped her short, however, collectedly enough.
"What is the matter, Theodora?" he demanded.
She slipped down upon a footstool, all in a flutter, when she saw him,
she was so shaken; and then, in her sudden abasement and breathless
tremor, gave vent to a piteous little half-sob, though she was terribly
ashamed of it.
"I--I don't know," she answered him. "It's--it's nothing at all." But he
knew better than that, and guessing very shrewdly that he was not wholly
unconnected with the matter himself, questioned her as closely as was
consistent with delicacy, and, in the end, after some diplomacy, and a
few more of surprised, piteous, little unwilling half-sobs, gleaned a
great deal of the truth from her.
"It was only--only something Sir Dugald said about you and Miss Gower,
and--and something about me," she added, desperately.
"Oh!" he said, looking so composed about it that the very sight of his
composure calmed her, and made her begin to think she had seen a
mountain in a mole-hill. "Sir Dugald? Only Sir Dugald? What did he say,
may I ask, as it--it is about myself and Miss Gower?"
Of course he might ask, but the difficulty lay in gaining any definite
answer. Theodora blushed, and then actually turned a little pale,
looking wondrously abased in her uncalled-for confusion; but she was not
at all coherent in her explanations, which were really not meant for
explanations at all.
"Il Trovatore was so beautiful!" she burst out, finally; "and so was
Faust; and I had never been to the opera in all my life before, and, of
course--" blushing and palpitating, but still looking at him without a
shade of falsehood in her innocent, straightforward eyes; "of course, I
couldn't. How could I be so silly, and vain, and presuming, as to think
of--of--of--"
She stopped here, as might be expected, and, if the room had been light
enough, she might have seen a shadow fall on Oglethorpe's face, as he
prompted her.
"Of what?"
Her eyes fell. "Of what Sir Dugald said," she ended, in a troubled
half-whisper.
There was a slight pause, in which both pairs of eyes looked
down--Theodora's upon the rug of tiger-skin at her feet, Oglethorpe's at
Theodora herself. They were treading upon dangerous ground, he knew, and
yet in the midst of his fierce anger at his weakness, he was conscious
of a regret--a contemptible regret, he told himself--that the eyes she
had raised to his own a moment ago, had been so very clear and
guilelessly honest in their accordance with the declaration her lips had
made.
"But, my dear Theodora," he at length broke the silence by saying,
carelessly, "why should we trouble ourselves about that elderly Goth, or
Vandal, if you choose--Sir Dugald? Who does trouble themselves about Sir
Dugald, and his amiably ponderous jocoseness? Not Lady Throckmorton, I
am sure; not society in general, you must know; consequently, let us
treat Sir Dugald with silent contempt, in a glorious consciousness of
our own spotless innocence."
He was half uneasy under his satirical indifference; though he was so
accustomed to conceal his thoughts under indifference and satire, he was
scarcely sure enough of himself at this minute; but, despite this, he
carried out the assumed mood pretty well.
"We have no need to be afraid of Sir Dugald's Vandalism, if we have no
fear of ourselves, and, considering, as you so very justly observed,
that it is quite impossible for us to be silly, and vain, and presuming
toward each other. I think we must be quite safe. I believe you said it
would be impossible, Theodora?"
Just one breath's space, and Theodora North looked up at him, as it were
through the influence of an electric flash of recognition. There was a
wild, sweet, troubled color on her cheeks, and her lips were trembling;
her whole face seemed to tremble; her very eyes had a varying tremulous
glow.
"Quite impossible, wasn't it, Theodora?" he repeated, and though he had
meant it for nothing more than a careless, daring speech, his voice
changed in defiance of him, and altered, or seemed to alter, both words
and their meaning. What, in the name of madness, he would have been rash
enough to say next, in response to the tremor of light and color in the
upturned face, it would be hard to say, for here he was stopped, as it
were, by Fortune herself.
Fortune came in the form of Lady Throckmorton, fresh from Trollope's
last, and in a communicative mood.
"Ah! You are here, Denis, and you, too, Theodora? Why are you sitting in
the dark?" And, as she bent over to touch the bell, Theodora rose from
her footstool to make way for her--rose with a little sigh, as if she
had just been awakened from a dream which was neither happy nor sad.
It was very plainly Lady Throckmorton's business to see, and, seeing,
understand the affairs of her inexperienced young relative; but if Lady
Throckmorton understood that Theodora North was unconsciously
endangering the peace of her girlish heart, Lady Throckmorton was very
silent, or very indifferent about the matter. But she was not moulded
after the manner of the stern female guardians usually celebrated in
love stories. She was not mercenary, and she was by no means
authoritative. She had sent for Theo with the intention of extending to
her the worldly assistance she had extended to Pamela, and, beyond that,
the matter lay in the girl's own hands. Lady Throckmorton had no high
views for her in particular; she wanted to see her enjoy herself as much
as possible until the termination of her visit, in whatever manner it
terminated, whether matrimonially or otherwise. Besides, she was not so
young as she had been in Pamela's time, and, consequently, though she
was reasonably fond of her handsome niece, and more than usually
generous toward her, she was inclined to let her follow her own devices.
For herself, she had her luxurious little retiring-room, with its
luxurious fires and lounges; and after these, or rather with these, came
an abundance of novels, and the perfect, creamy chocolate her French
cook made such a masterpiece of--novels and chocolate standing as
elderly and refined dissipations. And not being troubled with any very
strict ideas of right or wrong, it would, by no means, have annoyed her
ladyship to know that her handsome Theodora had out-generalled her pet
grievance, Priscilla Gower. Why should not Priscilla Gower be
out-generalled, and why should not Denis marry some one who was as much
better suited to him, as Theodora North plainly was?
"Tut! tut!" she said to Sir Dugald. "Why shouldn't they be married to
each other? It would be better than Priscilla Gower, if Theodora had
nothing but Pam's gray satin for her bridal trousseau."
So Theo was left to herself, and having no confidant but the pink and
gold journal, gradually began to trust to its page some very troubled
reflections. It had not occurred to her that she could possibly be
guilty in admiring Mr. Denis Oglethorpe so much as she did, and in
feeling so glad when he came, and so sorry when he went away. She had
not thought that it was because he was sitting near her, and talking to
her between the acts; that Il Trovatore and Faust had been so
thrillingly beautiful and tender. And this was quite true, even though
she had not begun to comprehend it as yet.
She had no right to feel anxious about him; and yet, when, after having
committed himself in the rash manner chronicled, he did not make his
appearance for nearly two weeks, she was troubled in no slight degree.
Indeed, though the thought was scarcely defined, she had some
unsophisticated misgivings as to whether Miss Priscilla Gower might not
have been aroused to a sense of the wrongs done her through the medium
of Il Trovatore, and so have laid an interdict upon his visits; but it
was only Sir Dugald who had suggested this to her fancy.
But by the end of the two weeks, she grew tired of waiting, and the days
were so very long, that at length, not without some slight compunction,
she made up her mind to go and pay a guileless visit to Miss Priscilla
Gower herself.
"I am going to see Miss Gower, aunt," she ventured to say one morning,
at the breakfast table.
Sir Dugald looked up from his huge slice of broiled venison, clumsily
jocose after his customary agreeable manner.
"What's that, Leonora?" he said. "Going to see the stern vestal, are
you? Priscilla, eh?"
Lady Throckmorton shrugged her shoulders in an indifferent sarcasm. She
was often both sarcastic and indifferent in her manner toward Sir
Dugald.
"Theo's in-goings and out-goings are scarcely our business, so long as
she enjoys herself," she said. "Present my regards to the Miss Gowers,
my dear, and say I regret that my health does not permit me to accompany
you."
A polite fiction by the way, as my lady was looking her best. It was
only upon state occasions, and solely on Denis' account, that she ever
submitted to Broome street, albeit the fat, gray horses, and fat gray
coachman did occasionally recognize the existence of that remote
locality.
It so happened that, as they drew up before Miss Gower's modest door
this morning, the modest door in question opened, and Denis Oglethorpe
himself came out, and, of course, caught sight of Theodora North, who
had just bent forward to pull the check-string, and so gave him a full
view of her charming _reante_, un-English face, and, in her pleasure at
seeing him, that young lady forgot both herself and Sir Dugald, and
exclaimed aloud,
"Oh, Mr. Oglethorpe!" she cried out. "I am so glad--" and then stopped,
in a confusion and trepidation absolutely brilliant.
He came to the window, and looked in at her.
"Are you coming to see Priscilla?" he said.
"Lady Throckmorton said I might," she answered, the warmth in her face
chilled by his unenthusiastic though kindly tone. She did not know what
a struggle it cost him to face her thus carelessly all at once.
He did not even open the carriage-door himself, but waited for the
footman to do it.
"Priscilla will be glad to see you," he said, quietly. "I will go into
the house again with you."
The dwarfed sitting-room looked very much as it had looked on Theo's
first introduction to it; but on this occasion Miss Elizabeth was not
arrayed in the snuff-colored satin; and when they entered, Priscilla was
kneeling down upon the hearth-rug, straightening out an obstreperous
fold in it.
She rose, collectedly, at once, and as her face turned toward them, Theo
was struck with some fancy of its being a shade paler than it had been
the last time she had seen it. But her manner was not changed in the
least, and she welcomed her visitor with grave cordiality. Poor little
snuff-colored Miss Elizabeth was delighted. She was getting very fond of
company in her old age, and had taken a great fancy to Theodora North.
"Send the carriage away, and stay with us until evening, Miss Theodora,"
she fluttered in wild, old-maidenly excitement. "Do stay, Miss Theodora,
and I will show you how to do the octagon-stitch, as I promised the last
time you were here. You remember how you admired it in that antimacassar
I was making for Priscilla?"
Miss Elizabeth's chief delight and occupation was the making of
miraculously-gorgeous mysteries for Priscilla; and Theo's modest
eulogies of her last piece of work had won her admiration and regard at
once. Consequently, under stress of Miss Elizabeth, the carriage was
fain to depart, much to the abasement of the fat, gray coachman, who
felt himself much dishonored in finding he was compelled, not only to
pay majestic calls to Broome street, but to acknowledge the humiliating
fact of friendly visits.
"We must have a fire in the best parlor, my dear," chirped Elizabeth,
ecstatically, when Theo's hat and jacket were being carried out of the
room. "Don't forget to tell Jane, Priscilla, and--" fumbling in her
large side-pocket, "here's the key of the preserve-closet. Quince
preserve, my dear, and white currant-jelly."
Theodora was reminded of Downport that day, in a hundred ways. The nice
little company-dinner reminded her of it; the solitary little roast fowl
and the preserves and puddings; but the company-dinners at Downport had
always been detracted from by the sharp annoyance in Pam's face, and the
general domestic bustle, and the total inadequacy of gravy and stuffing
to the wants of the boys. She was particularly reminded of it by the
ceremonious repairing to the fire in the front parlor, where everything
was so orderly, and even the family portraits had the appearance of
family portraits roused from a deep reverie to be surprised at an
intrusion.
"My late lamented parents, my dear," said Miss Elizabeth, rubbing her
spectacles, and admiringly regarding an owl-like, elderly gentleman, in
an aggressive brown wig, and an equally owl-like lady, in a
self-announcing false-front, embarrassingly suggestive of Miss
Elizabeth's own. "My late lamented parents, at the respective ages of
fifty and fifty-seven. My sister, Anastasia; my only brother, my
sister-in-law, his wife; and my dear Priscilla, at seventeen years."
Theo turned from the others to look at this last with a deeper interest;
remembered that it was when she was seventeen, that Priscilla had first
met Denis Oglethorpe. It was a small picture, half life-size, and set in
an oval frame of black walnut. Priscilla at seventeen had not been very
different from Priscilla at twenty-two. She had a pale, handsome,
ungirlish face--a Minerva face--steady, grave, handsome eyes, and a fine
head, unadorned, save with a classic knot of black brown hair. The
picture was not even younger-looking than Priscilla was now.
Miss Elizabeth regarded it in affectionate admiration of its beauty.
"My dear," she said to Theodora, "that is the most beautiful face in
London, to my old eyes. It reminds me of my dear Anastasia in her youth.
I was always glad my brother Benjamin's daughter was not like his wife.
We were not fond of my brother Benjamin's wife. She was a very giddy
young person, and very fond of gayety. She died of lung-fever,
contracted through exposing herself one night at a military ball, in
direct opposition to my brother Benjamin's wishes. She insisted upon
wearing blue-satin slippers, and a low-necked dress."
"Oh, dear!" said Theodora, secretly conscious of a guilty sympathy for
the giddy young person who ran counter to brother Benjamin's wishes, in
the matter of military balls and blue-satin slippers.
"Yes, my love!" Miss Elizabeth proceeded. "And for that reason I was
always glad to find that Priscilla was not at all like her. Priscilla
and I have been very happy together, in our quiet way; she has been the
best of dear, good girls to me. Indeed, I really don't know what I shall
do when I must lose her, as of course you know I shall be obliged to,
when she marries Mr. Denis Oglethorpe!"
"Yes, ma'am," answered Theo, and as she spoke, she felt a curious,
startled glow flash over her. This was the first time an actual approach
to the subject had been made in her presence.
"Yes, my dear!" said Miss Elizabeth again. "I shall feel the separation
very deeply, but it must be, you know. They have waited so long for each
other, that I should be a very wicked selfish old woman to throw any
obstacle, even so slight a one as my own discomfort, in their way. Don't
you think so?"
"Yes, madame," Theo faltered, very unsteadily, indeed.
But Miss Elizabeth did not notice any hesitation in her manner, and went
on with her confidential chat, eulogizing Priscilla and her betrothed
affectionately. Mr. Denis Oglethorpe would be a rich man some of these
days, and then what a happy life must Priscilla's be--so young, so
beautiful, so beloved. "Not that wealth brings happiness, my dear Miss
Theodora. Riches are very deceitful, you know; but there is a great deal
of solid comfort in a genteel sufficiency."
To all of which Theo acquiesced, modestly, inwardly wondering if she was
very wrong in wishing that Oglethorpe had not left them quite so early.
The day passed pleasantly enough, however, in a quiet way. Miss
Elizabeth was very affectionate and communicative, and told her a great
many stories of Anastasia, and the late-lamented Benjamin, as they sat
by the fire together, in the evening, and blundered over the
octagon-stitch. It was an Afghan Miss Elizabeth was making now; and when
at tea-time, Mr. Oglethorpe came, he found Theodora North sitting on the
hearth, flushed with industrious anxiety, and thrown into reflected glow
of brilliant Berlin wool, a beautiful young spider in a gorgeous Afghan
web.
"I should like," she was saying as he entered, "to buy Pamela and the
girls some nice little presents. What would you advise me to get, Miss
Gower?"
She was very faithful to the shabby household at Downport. Her letters
were never careless or behind time, and no one was ever neglected in the
multiplicity of messages. She would be the most truthful and faithful of
loving women a few years hence, this handsome Theodora. There was some
reserve in her manner toward Denis this evening. She attended to Miss
Elizabeth's octagon-stitch, and left him to amuse Priscilla. He had not
seemed very much pleased to see her in the morning, and besides,
Priscilla was plainly his business. But when the carriage was announced,
and she returned to the parlor, after an absence of a few minutes,
drawing on her gloves, and buttoning her pretty jacket close up to her
beautiful slender, dusky throat, Denis took his hat and accompanied her
to the carriage. He did not wait for the footman this time; but, after
assisting her to get in, closed the door himself, and leaned against the
open window for a moment.
"I want you to deliver a message to Lady Throckmorton for me," he said.
"May I trouble you, Theodora?"
She bent her head with an unpleasantly-quickened heart-beat. It was very
foolish, of course, but she felt as if something painful was going to
happen, and nothing on earth could prevent it.
"Business has unexpectedly called me away from London--from England," he
explained, in a strange yet quite steady voice. "I am obliged to go to
Belgium at once, and my affairs are in such a condition that I may be
compelled to remain across the channel for some time. Be good enough to
say to Lady Throckmorton that I regret deeply that I could not see her
before going; but--but the news has been sudden, and my time is fully
occupied; but I will write to her from my first stopping-place."
"I will tell her," said Theodora.
"Thank you," he replied, courteously, and then, after a short
hesitation, began again, in the tone he used so often--the tone that
might be jest or earnest. "And now, there is something else, a subject
upon which I wish to ask your unbiased opinion, my dear Theodora, before
I say good-bye. When a man finds himself in a danger with which he
cannot combat, and remain human--in danger, where defeat means dishonor,
do you not agree with me, that the safest plan that man can adopt is to
run away?"
Her quickened heart might almost have been running a life-and-death race
with her leaping pulse, but she answered him almost steadily.
"Yes," she said to him. "You are quite right. He had better go away."
"Thank you," he returned again. "Then you will give me your hand and
wish me God-speed; and, perhaps--I say perhaps--you will answer me
another question. This morning, when you spoke to me through the
carriage window, you began to say something about being glad. Were you
going to say--" He broke off here, sharply. "No!" he exclaimed. "I will
not ask you."
"I was going to say that I was glad to see you," Theo interrupted,
gravely. "I was glad to see you. And now, perhaps, you had better tell
the coachman to drive on. I will deliver your message to Lady
Throckmorton; and as I shall not see you again, unless I am here in
July--of course you will come back then--good-bye, Mr. Oglethorpe."
She gave him her hand through the carriage-window, and, for a moment, he
held it, to all appearance quite calm, as he looked down at the lovely
face the flare of an adjacent gaslight revealed to him against a
background of shadow.
"Good-bye," he said, and then released it. "Drive on," he called to the
coachman, and in a moment more, he stood alone watching the carriage
turn the corner.