The Fate of Fenella. Various Authors

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СКАЧАТЬ But talking of ancestors, I've got such a lovely story to tell you. There is a frightfully fat, vulgar woman at our hotel, and you know there are only two things in this sinful world that give me real fits—humbug and vulgarity. Well, this woman never for one single meal lets anybody forget her progenitors, and bawls out at the top of her dreadful ​voice, 'All my people are cavalry people!" And what do you think? Her uncle keeps a pork shop not far from here, so after all she's perfectly right in her boast, only the cavalry are—Pigs!"

      Frank laughed.

      "You are as bad as ever, I see," he said, and then glanced at the driver, who had averted his head as much as possible.

      "George," said Fenella, putting a coaxing little face round his shoulder, "could you—would you mind putting a bit of cotton wool in your ear on this side, because I want to talk to—to Lord Francis? I've got a bit in my pocket somewhere, I know."

      George's face flickered, as he expressed himself quite agreeable, but was rather surprised, as blue-blooded people usually talk before their inferiors as if they had no more hearing and understanding faculties than tables or chairs. When the wool was produced out of a smart little pocket, he proceeded to plug his ear gravely, and even rammed it down hard to show that his intentions were strictly honorable. This business over, Fenella turned round and showed a little laughing face that seemed to have caught all the sunshine of the day, aye, and held it fast.

      "I always carry a bit in my pocket for Ronny," she said, "as he gets a touch of earache sometimes. What's that? They can hear us behind? Oh? no, the trot of the horses' feet swallows up ​our voices. Let them talk. They will say I picked you up!"

      "So you did. Do you know any of them?"

      "Heaven forbid! A woman, my dear, who never sits in the drawing room with the other ladies," said Fenella, adroitly mimicking a sour female voice, "there must be something wrong about her. And so there is," she added, below her breath, and for a moment the little face grew hard.

      "How is Ronny?" said Frank.

      "He is very well," she said nonchalantly. "Poor wee man, isn't it a good job he isn't a girl? And he hasn't begun to grow ugly and horrid and masculine yet—he is all mine, mine!"

      The mother's love in her rang out triumphantly, and her face grew very tender.

      "We have such good times together, he and I," she went on happily; " he is not with me to-day, because he is playing cricket at the present moment. We go down to the Stray with the bat and stumps, and forage round for a scratch team. I took a hand myself the other day, and actually bowled out a butcher's boy!"

      Frank laughed, then shook his head. "You are quite as mad as ever," he said. "Where is your companion?"

      "I hope," said Fenella calmly, "that she is dead. I didn't try to polish off any of the other ones, because they meant well in spite of their ​aggravatingness, but she was downright wicked. So I led her a life," she concluded, looking as triumphantly happy as a child who plays truant on a glorious day with a pocketful of pennies and burnt almonds.

      Frank shook his head sadly.

      "Why won't you be good, Fenella?" he said. "You could be so easily."

      "I always am," said Fenella promptly, and nodded her curly head close to his nose." I take sulphur baths, and regularly sneeze sulphur. I get up every morning at half-past seven. Just think of that! It's a fearful scramble, because Ronny never will wake up. He sleeps just like you, for ever and ever." She stopped, and colored vividly, then dashed on again breathlessly, "And of course it takes some time to dress him."

      "You have no nurse, no maid!" he exclaimed, in amazement.

      "No," she replied with great sangfroid, "I like a free hand, and no woman can have that, with a female detective tripping up her heels, and wearing her silk stockings. And I love to wait on Ronny—to wash and dress him, and make him look sweet. Of course," she added anxiously, "he isn't always clean—the dirtier a boy is, the nicer he is—but he is perfectly happy! You should see us run down the hill to the Pump-room, though everyone has done long before we get there! And then we eat such a breakfast. ​We've got a dear little fat waiter who simply devotes himself to us, and steals for us all the newest eggs! But he had an awful accident yesterday," said Fenella, turning tragic eyes on Frank, "what do you think it was?"

      "He fell in love with you?"

      Fenella began to laugh in that low gurgle which was so like the sound of a cheerful, overfull brook.

      "Do you remember you said that about my hairdresser? And how I said I thought it would really have come cheaper in the end if I had married him? I always thought that rather neat myself. But I never told you what the accident was. He broke four hundred plates yesterday!"

      "Very greedy of him if he did it all at once."

      "It was all at once. The strap of the lift broke as he was hauling them up!"

      "Poor devil!" said Frank absently.

      They were quite away from the houses now, and the brisk, pure air, the pleasant scents from the hedgerows, and the swift movement to the music of the horses' feet, and perhaps some other sources of satisfaction within, brought a light to Fenella's eyes, and a rose-soft color to her cheek that made her altogether enchanting and sweet.

      "And pray," said Frank, looking at her eagerly, unwillingly, as at forbidden fruit that sorely tempted him, "do you talk to any of the fellows at the hotel?"

      ​"No," she said airily," they talk to me. You see, they are all so fond of Ronny."

      "No doubt," said Frank, curtly and significantly.

      "But I pretend not to hear. Stay—there is one man whom I talk to—"

      "Who is he?" said Frank grimly, and looking straight between the horses' ears.

      "Oh, nobody in particular," said Fenella, rather faintly, "but you see he has a small nephew here, and it seems he and Ronny met at the Grandisons' in the country, and are quite old friends. So the barrister and I have got quite pally."

      Frank sat mute as a fish.

      "He is of the type I rather admire," she said, with a suspicious note in her voice. "You know, Frank," she lifted a naïvely impudent, grave little face to his, "I always did like a dark, clean-shaven man!"

      Frank himself was as dark and clean-shaven as it was possible to be, and the corners of his mouth trembled at her audacity, as he turned away.

      "He told me such a delicious story yesterday," she went on, her face breaking up into dimples. "It was about a little girl upon whose mother a horrid old woman was calling. When the old woman got up to depart, she said to the child, 'You'll come and see me, my dear, won't you?' 'Oh, yes!' said the child, 'But you don't know ​where I live?' 'Yes, I do,' said the child, nodding. 'I know who is your next-door neighbor.' 'Who is that?' says the old woman. "Why, mother says you are next door to a fool!'"

      But Frank did not smile. It is curious that a man's sense of humor is usually entirely in abeyance when matters of stern import engross him, while a woman's is usually at its keenest when tragedy is in the air.

      "What do people think at the hotel?" he burst СКАЧАТЬ