A Little Rebel
M >> Margaret Wolfe Hungerford >> A Little RebelA LITTLE REBEL
A NOVEL
BY THE DUCHESS
_Author of "Her Last Throw," "April's Lady," "Faith and Unfaith," etc.,
etc._
Montreal:
JOHN LOVELL & SON,
23 St. Nicholas Street.
Entered according to Act of Parliament in the year 1891, by John Lovell
& Son, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture and Statistics at
Ottawa.
A LITTLE REBEL.
CHAPTER I.
"Perplex'd in the extreme."
"The memory of past favors is like a rainbow, bright, vivid and
beautiful."
The professor, sitting before his untasted breakfast, is looking the
very picture of dismay. Two letters lie before him; one is in his hand,
the other is on the table-cloth. Both are open; but of one, the opening
lines--that tell of the death of his old friend--are all he has read;
whereas he has read the other from start to finish, already three times.
It is from the old friend himself, written a week before his death, and
very urgent and very pleading. The professor has mastered its contents
with ever-increasing consternation.
Indeed so great a revolution has it created in his mind, that his
face--(the index of that excellent part of him)--has, for the moment,
undergone a complete change. Any ordinary acquaintance now entering the
professor's rooms (and those acquaintances might be whittled down to
quite a _little_ few), would hardly have known him. For the abstraction
that, as a rule, characterizes his features--the way he has of looking
at you, as if he doesn't see you, that harasses the simple, and enrages
the others--is all gone! Not a trace of it remains. It has given place
to terror, open and unrestrained.
"A girl!" murmurs he in a feeble tone, falling back in his chair. And
then again, in a louder tone of dismay--"A _girl_!" He pauses again, and
now again gives way to the fear that is destroying him--"A _grown_
girl!"
After this, he seems too overcome to continue his reflections, so goes
back to the fatal letter. Every now and then, a groan escapes him,
mingled with mournful remarks, and extracts from the sheet in his hand--
"Poor old Wynter! Gone at last!" staring at the shaking signature at the
end of the letter that speaks so plainly of the coming icy clutch that
should prevent the poor hand from forming ever again even such sadly
erratic characters as these. "At least," glancing at the half-read
letter on the cloth--"_this_ tells me so. His solicitor's, I suppose.
Though what Wynter could want with a solicitor----Poor old fellow! He
was often very good to me in the old days. I don't believe I should have
done even as much as I _have_ done, without him.... It must be fully ten
years since he threw up his work here and went to Australia! ... ten
years. The girl must have been born before he went,"--glances at
letter--"'My child, my beloved Perpetua, the one thing on earth I love,
will be left entirely alone. Her mother died nine years ago. She is only
seventeen, and the world lies before her, and never a soul in it to care
how it goes with her. I entrust her to you--(a groan). To you I give
her. Knowing that if you are living, dear fellow, you will not desert me
in my great need, but will do what you can for my little one.'"
"But what is that?" demands the professor, distractedly. He pushes his
spectacles up to the top of his head, and then drags them down again,
and casts them wildly into the sugar-bowl. "What on earth am I to do
with a girl of seventeen? If it had been a boy! even _that_ would have
been bad enough--but a girl! And, of course--I know Wynter--he has died
without a penny. He was bound to do that, as he always lived without
one. _Poor_ old Wynter!"--as if a little ashamed of himself. "I don't
see how I can afford to put her out to nurse." He pulls himself up with
a start. "To nurse! a girl of seventeen! She'll want to be going out to
balls and things--at her age."
As if smitten to the earth by this last awful idea, he picks his glasses
out of the sugar and goes back to the letter.
"You will find her the dearest girl. Most loving, and tender-hearted;
and full of life and spirits."
"Good heavens!" says the professor. He puts down the letter again,
and begins to pace the room. "'Life and spirits.' A sort of young
kangaroo, no doubt. What will the landlady say? I shall leave these
rooms"--with a fond and lingering gaze round the dingy old apartment
that hasn't an article in it worth ten sous--"and take a small
house--somewhere--and ... But--er----It won't be respectable, I think.
I--I've heard things said about--er--things like that. It's no good in
_looking_ an old fogey, if you aren't one; it's no earthly use"--standing
before a glass and ruefully examining his countenance--"in looking fifty
if you are only thirty-four. It will be a scandal," says the professor
mournfully. "They'll _cut_ her, and they'll cut me, and--what the _deuce_
did Wynter mean by leaving me his daughter? A real live girl of
seventeen! It'll be the death of me," says the professor, mopping his
brow. "What"----wrathfully----"that determined spendthrift meant, by
flinging his family on _my_ shoulders, I----Oh! _Poor_ old Wynter!"
Here he grows remorseful again. Abuse a man dead and gone, and one, too,
who had been good to him in many ways when he, the professor, was
younger than he is now, and had just quarrelled with a father who was
always only too prone to quarrel with anyone who gave him the chance
seems but a poor thing. The professor's quarrel with his father had been
caused by the young man's refusal to accept a Government
appointment--obtained with some difficulty--for the very insufficient
and, as it seemed to his father, iniquitous reason, that he had made up
his mind to devote his life to science. Wynter, too, was a scientist of
no mean order, and would, probably, have made his mark in the world, if
the world and its pleasures had not made their mark on him. He had been
young Curzon's coach at one time, and finding the lad a kindred spirit,
had opened out to him his own large store of knowledge, and steeped him
in that great sea of which no man yet has drank enough--for all begin,
and leave it, athirst.
Poor Wynter! The professor, turning in his stride up and down the
narrow, uncomfortable room, one of the many that lie off the Strand,
finds his eyes resting on that other letter--carelessly opened, barely
begun.
From Wynter's solicitor! It seems ridiculous that Wynter should have
_had_ a solicitor. With a sigh, he takes it up, opens it out and begins
to read it. At the end of the second page, he starts, re-reads a
sentence or two, and suddenly his face becomes illuminated. He throws up
his head. He cackles a bit. He looks as if he wants to say something
very badly--"Hurrah," probably--only he has forgotten how to do it, and
finally goes back to the letter again, and this time--the third
time--finishes it.
Yes. It is all right! Why on earth hadn't he read it _first_? So, the
girl is to be sent to live with her aunt after all--an old lady--maiden
lady. Evidently living somewhere in Bloomsbury. Miss Jane Majendie.
Mother's sister evidently. Wynter's sisters would never have been old
maids if they had resembled him, which probably they did--if he had any.
What a handsome fellow he was! and such a good-natured fellow too.
The professor colors here in his queer sensitive way, and pushes his
spectacles up and down his nose, in another nervous fashion of his.
After all, it was only this minute he had been accusing old Wynter of
anything but good nature. Well! He had wronged him there. He glances at
the letter again.
He has only been appointed her guardian, it seems. Guardian of her
fortune, rather than of her.
The old aunt will have the charge of her body, the--er--pleasure of her
society--_he_, of the estate only.
Fancy Wynter, of all men, dying rich--actually _rich_. The professor
pulls his beard, and involuntarily glances round the somewhat meagre
apartment, that not all his learning, not all his success in the
scientific world--and it has been not unnoteworthy, so far--has enabled
him to improve upon. It has helped him to live, no doubt, and distinctly
outside the line of _want_, a thing to be grateful for, as his family
having in a measure abandoned him, he, on his part, had abandoned his
family in a _measure_ also (and with reservations), and it would have
been impossible to him, of all men, to confess himself beaten, and
return to them for assistance of any kind. He could never have enacted
the part of the prodigal son. He knew this in earlier days, when husks
were for the most part all he had to sustain him. But the mind requires
not even the material husk, it lives on better food than that, and in
his case mind had triumphed over body, and borne it triumphantly to a
safe, if not as yet to a victorious, goal.
Yet Wynter, the spendthrift, the erstwhile master of him who now could
be _his_ master, has died, leaving behind him a fortune. What was the
sum? He glances back to the sheet in his hand and verifies his thought.
Yes--eighty thousand pounds! A good fortune even in these luxurious
days. He has died worth L80,000, of which his daughter is sole heiress!
Before the professor's eyes rises a vision of old Wynter. They used to
call him "old," those boys who attended his classes, though he was as
light-hearted as the best of them, and as handsome as a dissipated
Apollo. They had all loved him, if they had not revered him, and,
indeed, he had been generally regarded as a sort of living and lasting
joke amongst them.
Curzon, holding the letter in his hand, and bringing back to his memory
the handsome face and devil-may-care expression of his tutor, remembers
how the joke had widened, and reached its height when, at forty years of
age, old Wynter had flung up his classes, leaving them all _plante la_
as it were, and declared his intention of starting life anew and making
a pile for himself in some new world.
Well! it had not been such a joke after all, if they had only known.
Wynter _had_ made that mythical "pile," and had left his daughter an
heiress!
Not only an heiress, but a gift to Miss Jane Majendie, of somewhere in
Bloomsbury.
The professor's disturbed face grows calm again. It even occurs to him
that he has not eaten his breakfast. He so _often_ remembers this, that
it does not trouble him. To pore over his books (that are overflowing
every table and chair in the uncomfortable room) until his eggs are
India-rubber, and his rashers gutta-percha, is not a fresh experience.
But though this morning both eggs and rasher have attained a high place
in the leather department, he enters on his sorry repast with a glad
heart.
Sweet are the rebounds from jeopardy to joy! And he has so _much_ of
joy! Not only has he been able to shake from his shoulders that awful
incubus--and ever-present ward--but he can be sure that the absent ward
is so well-off with regard to this word's goods, that he need never give
her so much as a passing thought--dragged, _torn_ as that thought would
be from his beloved studies.
The aunt, of course, will see about her fortune. _He_ has has only a
perfunctory duty--to see that the fortune is not squandered. But he is
safe there. Maiden ladies _never_ squander! And the girl, being only
seventeen, can't possibly squander it herself for some time.
Perhaps he ought to call on her, however. Yes, of course, he must call.
It is the usual thing to call on one's ward. It will be a terrible
business no doubt. _All_ girls belong to the genus nuisance. And _this_
girl will be at the head of her class no doubt. "Lively, spirited," so
far went the parent. A regular hoyden may be read between those kind
parental lines.
The poor professor feels hot again with nervous agitation as he imagines
an interview between him and the wild, laughing, noisy, perhaps horsey
(they all ride in Australia) young woman to whom he is bound to make his
bow.
How soon must this unpleasant interview take place? Once more he looks
back to the solicitor's letter. Ah! On Jan. 3rd her father, poor old
Wynter, had died, and on the 26th of May, she is to be "on view" at
Bloomsbury! and it is now the 2nd of February. A respite! Perhaps, who
knows? She may never arrive at Bloomsbury at all! There are young men in
Australia, a hoyden, as far as the professor has read (and that is
saying a good deal), would just suit the man in the bush.
CHAPTER II.
"A maid so sweet that her mere sight made glad men sorrowing."
Nevertheless the man in the bush doesn't get her.
Time has run on a little bit since the professor suffered many agonies
on a certain raw February morning, and now it is the 30th of May, and a
glorious finish too to that sweet month.
Even into this dingy old room, where at a dingy old table the professor
sits buried in piles of notes, and with sheets of manuscript knee-deep
scattered around him, the warm glad sun is stealing; here and there, the
little rays are darting, lighting up a dusty corner here, a hidden heap
of books there. It is, as yet, early in the afternoon, and the riotous
beams, who are no respecter of persons, and who honor the righteous and
the ungodly alike, are playing merrily in this sombre chamber, given so
entirely up to science and its prosy ways, daring even now to dance
lightly on the professor's head, which has begun to grow a little bald.
"The golden sun, in splendor likest heav'n,"
is proving perhaps a little too much for the tired brain in the small
room. Either that, or the incessant noises in the street outside, which
have now been enriched by the strains of a broken-down street piano,
causes him to lay aside his pen and lean back in a weary attitude in his
chair.
What a day it is! How warm! An hour ago he had delivered a brilliant
lecture on the everlasting Mammoth (a fresh specimen just arrived from
Siberia), and is now paying the penalty of greatness. He had done
well--he knew that--he had been _interesting_, that surest road to
public favor--he had been applauded to the echo; and now, worn out,
tired in mind and body, he is living over again his honest joy in his
success.
In this life, however, it is not given us to be happy for long. A knock
at the professor's door brings him back to the present, and the
knowledge that the landlady--a stout, somewhat erratic person of
fifty--is standing on his threshold, a letter in her hand.
"For you, me dear," says she, very kindly, handing the letter to the
professor.
She is perhaps the one person of his acquaintance who has been able to
see through the professor's gravity and find him _young_.
"Thank you," says he. He takes the letter indifferently, opens it
languidly, and----Well, there isn't much languor after the perusal of
it.
The professor sits up; literally this time slang is unknown to him; and
re-reads it. _That girl has come!_ There can't be any doubt of it. He
had almost forgotten her existence during these past tranquil months,
when no word or hint about her reached him, but now, _here_ she is at
last, descending upon him like a whirlwind.
A line in a stiff, uncompromising hand apprises the professor of the
unwelcome fact. The "line" is signed by "Jane Majendie," therefore there
can be no doubt of the genuineness of the news contained in it. Yes!
that girl _has_ come!
The professor never swears, or he might now perhaps have given way to
reprehensible words.
Instead of that, he pulls himself together, and determines on immediate
action. To call upon this ward of his is a thing that must be done
sooner or later, then why not sooner? Why not at once? The more
unpleasant the duty, the more necessity to get it off one's mind without
delay.
He pulls the bell. The landlady appears again.
"I must go out," says the professor, staring a little helplessly at her.
"An' a good thing too," says she. "A saint's day ye might call it, wid
the sun. An' where to, sir, dear? Not to thim rascally sthudents, I do
thrust?"
"No, Mrs. Mulcahy. I--I am going to see a young lady," says the
professor simply.
"The divil!" says Mrs. Mulcahy with a beaming smile. "Faix, that's a
turn the right way anyhow. But have ye thought o' yer clothes, me dear?"
"Clothes?" repeats the professor vaguely.
"Arrah, wait," says she, and runs away lightly, in spite of her fifty
years and her too, too solid flesh, and presently returns with the
professor's best coat and a clothes brush that, from its appearance,
might reasonably be supposed to have been left behind by Noah when he
stepped out of the Ark. With this latter (having put the coat on him)
she proceeds to belabor the professor with great spirit, and presently
sends him forth shining--if not _in_ternally, at all events
_ex_ternally.
In truth the professor's mood is not a happy one. Sitting in the hansom
that is taking him all too swiftly to his destination, he dwells with
terror on the girl--the undesired ward--who has been thrust upon him. He
has quite made up his mind about her. An Australian girl! One knows what
to expect _there_! Health unlimited; strength tremendous; and
noise--_much_ noise.
Yes, she is sure to be a _big_ girl. A girl with branching limbs, and a
laugh you could hear a mile off. A young woman with no sense of the
fitness of things, and a settled conviction that nothing could shake,
that "'Strailia" is _the_ finest country on earth! A bouncing creature
who _never_ sits down; to whom rest or calm is unknown, and whose
highest ambition will be to see the Tower and the wax-works.
Her hair is sure to be untidy; hanging probably in straight, black locks
over her forehead, and her frock will look as if it had been pitchforked
on to her, and requires only the insubordination of _one_ pin to leave
her without it again.
The professor is looking pale, but has on him all the air of one
prepared for _anything_ as the maid shows him into the drawing-room of
the house where Miss Jane Majendie lives.
His thoughts are still full of her niece. _Her_ niece, poor woman, and
_his_ ward--poor _man_! when the door opens and _some one_ comes in.
_Some one!_
The professor gets slowly on to his feet, and stares at the advancing
apparition. Is it child or woman, this fair vision? A hard question to
answer! It is quite easy to read, however, that "some one" is very
lovely!
"It is you; Mr. Curzon, is it not?" says the vision.
Her voice is sweet and clear, a little petulant perhaps, but still
_very_ sweet. She is quite small--a _little_ girl--and clad in deep
mourning. There is something pathetic about the dense black surrounding
such a radiant face, and such a childish figure. Her eyes are fixed on
the professor, and there is evident anxiety in their hazel depths; her
soft lips are parted; she seems hesitating as if not knowing whether she
shall smile or sigh. She has raised both her hands as if unconsciously,
and is holding them clasped against her breast. The pretty fingers are
covered with costly rings. Altogether she makes a picture--this little
girl, with her brilliant eyes, and mutinous mouth, and soft black
clinging gown. Dainty-sweet she looks,
"Sweet as is the bramble-flower."
"Yes," says the professor, in a hesitating way, as if by no means
certain of the fact. He is so vague about it, indeed, that "some one's"
dark eyes take a mischievous gleam.
"Are you _sure_?" says she, and looks up at him suddenly, a little
sideways perhaps, as if half frightened, and gives way to a naughty sort
of little laugh. It rings through the room, this laugh, and has the
effect of frightening her _altogether_ this time. She checks herself,
and looks first down at the carpet with the big roses on it, where one
little foot is wriggling in a rather nervous way, and then up again at
the professor, as if to see if he is thinking bad things of her. She
sighs softly.
"Have you come to see me or Aunt Jane?" asks she; "because Aunt Jane is
out--_I'm glad to say_"--this last pianissimo.
"To see you," says the professor absently. He is thinking! He has taken
her hand, and held it, and dropped it again, all in a state of high
bewilderment.
Is _this_ the big, strong, noisy girl of his imaginings? The bouncing
creature with untidy hair, and her clothes pitchforked on to her?
"Well--I hoped so," says she, a little wistfully as it seems to him,
every trace of late sauciness now gone, and with it the sudden shyness.
After many days the professor grows accustomed to these sudden
transitions that are so puzzling yet so enchanting, these rapid,
inconsequent, but always lovely changes
"From grave to gay, from lively to severe."
"Won't you sit down?" says his small hostess gently, touching a chair
near her with her slim fingers.
"Thank you," says the professor, and then stops short.
"You are----"
"Your ward," says she, ever so gently still, yet emphatically. It is
plain that she is now on her very _best_ behavior. She smiles up at him
in a very encouraging way. "And you are my guardian, aren't you?"
"Yes," says the professor, without enthusiasm. He has seated himself,
not on the chair she has pointed out to him, but on a very distant
lounge. He is conscious of a feeling of growing terror. This lovely
child has created it, yet why, or how? Was ever guardian mastered by a
ward before? A desire to escape is filling him, but he has got to do his
duty to his dead friend, and this is part of it.
He has retired to the far-off lounge with a view to doing it as
distantly as possible, but even this poor subterfuge fails him. Miss
Wynter, picking up a milking-stool, advances leisurely towards him, and
seating herself upon it just in front of him, crosses her hands over her
knees and looks expectantly up at him with a charming smile.
"_Now_ we can have a good talk," says she.
CHAPTER III.
"And if you dreamed how a friend's smile
And nearness soothe a heart that's sore,
You might be moved to stay awhile
Before my door."
"About?" begins the professor, and stammers, and ceases.
"Everything," says she, with a little nod. "It is impossible to talk to
Aunt Jane. She doesn't talk, she only argues, and always wrongly. But
you are different. I can see that. Now tell me,"--she leans even more
forward and looks intently at the professor, her pretty brows wrinkled
as if with extreme and troublous thought--"What are the duties of a
guardian?"
"Eh?" says the professor. He moves his glasses up to his forehead and
then pulls them down again. Did ever anxious student ask him question so
difficult of answer as this one--that this small maiden has propounded?
"You can think it over," says she most graciously. "There is no hurry,
and I am quite aware that one isn't made a guardian _every_ day. Do you
think you could make it out whilst I count forty?"
"I think I could make it out more quickly if you didn't count at all,"
says the professor, who is growing warm. "The duties of a
guardian--are--er--to--er--to see that one's ward is comfortable and
happy."
"Then there is a great deal of duty for _you_ to do," says she solemnly,
letting her chin slip into the hollow of her hand.
"I know--I'm sure of it," says the professor with a sigh that might be
called a groan. "But your aunt, Miss Majendie--your mother's
sister--can----"
"I don't believe she's my mother's sister," says Miss Wynter calmly. "I
have seen my mother's picture. It is lovely! Aunt Jane was a
changeling--I'm sure of it. But never mind her. You were going to
say----?"
"That Miss Majendie, who is virtually your guardian--can explain it all
to you much better than I can."
"Aunt Jane is _not_ my guardian!" The mild look of enquiry changes to
one of light anger. The white brow contracts. "And certainly she could
never make one happy and comfortable. Well--what else?"
"She will look after----"
"I told you I don't care about Aunt Jane. Tell me what you can do----"
"See that your fortune is not----"
"I don't care about my fortune either," with a little gesture. "But I
_do_ care about my happiness. Will you see to _that_?"
"Of course," says the professor gravely.
"Then you will take me away from Aunt Jane!" The small vivacious face is
now all aglow. "I am not happy with Aunt Jane. I"--clasping her hands,
and letting a quick, vindictive fire light her eyes--"I _hate_ Aunt
Jane. She says things about poor papa that----_Oh!_ how I hate her!"
"But--you shouldn't--you really should not. I feel certain you ought
not," says the professor, growing vaguer every moment.
"Ought I not?" with a quick little laugh that is all anger and no mirth.
"I _do_ though, for all that! I"--pausing, and regarding him with a
somewhat tragic air that sits most funnily upon her--"am not going to
stay here much longer!"
"_What?_" says the professor aghast. "But my dear----Miss Wynter, I'm
afraid you _must_."
"Why? What is she to me?"
"Your aunt."
"That's nothing--nothing at all--even a _guardian_ is better than that.
And you are my guardian. Why," coming closer to him and pressing five
soft little fingers in an almost feverish fashion upon his arm, "why
can't _you_ take me away?"