The Fate of Fenella. Various Authors

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СКАЧАТЬ even though she were young, beautiful, full of impulsive high spirit, and separated from her husband, and even although he had not happened to be in love with her. He did not intend to break a lance on her behalf. He was not given to such breaking of lances, for he also "knew the world." But neither was he going to accept Lord Castleton's statements with the undoubting faith that Lord Castleton seemed to expect. Nevertheless he listened.

      "She was an only child, you know," said Lord Castleton, hooking himself on to his companion's arm, so as to speak confidentially in his ear as they walked up and down, "idolized by her father. Her mother died when she was a small child, so she was left to take pretty much her own way ever since she was six years old. Ffrench got some old woman or other to look after her as she grew older—a kind of duenna, you know. But as to controlling her, it was a mere farce. Fenella did as she pleased with the colonel, and the colonel did as he pleased with everybody else, for he was a Tartar, and never allowed any member of his household to contradict him—always with the one exception, you know; and so the end of it was that every man, ​woman, and child about the place had to be Miss Fenella's very humble servant, or had to go. She was the wildest little beggar; used to go tearing about the country on a little Arab horse she had. Once she took it into her head to ride to hounds, and, by George, sir, she went flying over everything that came in her way and was in at the death! The only woman there; just think of that! A child not fifteen riding to hounds quite alone, for the old groom who used to trot about after her could no more keep up with her than if he'd been mounted on a tortoise."

      A vision of the slight, straight, fearless young creature, with a wave of tawny hair floating behind her, the wonderful hazel eyes shining, and the delicate cheeks glowing like roses, came vividly before Mr. Jacynth's mind as he listened.

      "I know that story's true," continued Castleton. "Old Lord Furzeby, who was Master at that time, and had been hunting the county for twenty years, told me it himself; and said he'd never seen anything like it. However, he called next day on her father, and then Ffrench did put a stop to the hunting. He wouldn't quite stand that."

      "Well?" said Jacynth, after a pause.

      "Well, that's just a specimen of the way she was brought up. But there were worse things than the hunting, a deuced sight."

      ​"What things?" growled Jacynth, flashing a dark side glance at his companion's round rubicund face.

      "I—upon my soul, I think they may be all summed up in one word—flirtation! Of all the outrageous, audacious, insatiable little flirts that ever were born for the botheration of mankind, I suppose Fenella Ffrench is about the completest specimen."

      "Poor mankind!" sneered Jacynth, drawing down the corners of his mouth.

      "My dear fellow, she began when she was in short frocks. I've no doubt the man where she bought her hoops and dolls was in love with her. And when she began to grow up it was a general massacre."

      "Not of the innocents, however," muttered Jacynth.

      "Ffrench's place was in Hampshire, not quite out of reach by a drive from Portsmouth, although it was a long pull by road. And before she was sixteen, Fenella had bowled over the whole garrison. I believe the local chemist expected a wholesale order for prussic acid the day her engagement to Frank Onslow was announced," said his fat little lordship, chuckling at his own wit.

      "Where did she meet him?"

      "At a garrison ball in Portsmouth. It was supposed to be a case of love at first sight. ​Regular Romeo and Juliet business, don't you know?"

      "Oh! she loved him?" said Jacynth, between his set teeth.

      "God knows! she said she did, any way; and made him believe it. As for him, he was desperately mashed."

      "And so—and so they married, but didn't live happy ever after."

      "No, by George! It didn't last long. For the first year or two, it was all billing and cooing. They took a little place in Surrey, and gave themselves up to rurality and domestic affection. Old Ffrench used to spend half his time there with 'em. And when Fenella's boy was born, they had a story that the colonel was seen wheeling a perambulator about the garden, and administering a feeding-bottle. It did seem as though Fenella had begun to put a good deal of water in her wine, as the Italians say. They hadn't been married three years when Colonel Ffrench died suddenly. I was not in England at the time. I was in a very low state—all to pieces! In fact. Sir Abel Adamson has since confessed that he thought my nervous system—however, that will probably not interest you. I set off on a long sea voyage, which they said was my best chance. And, in point of fact, I prowled about for more than a year and a half. It was in Japan that I got hold of an old Times ​with the announcement of Ffrench's death. Oho! thought I to myself. My Lady Francis Onslow will come in for a nice little pile. She had something when she married. And, of course, Ffrench left her everything he had in the world."

      "Then Lord Francis Onslow hadn't made a bad thing of it?"

      "A very good thing of it!—from the financial point of view, that is. He was a duke's son; but I needn't tell you that a duke's fifth son——"

      "Can't expect to marry a lady from Chicago or New York with millions of dollars in pigs or petroleum. Of course not! That's reserved for his seniors," said Jacynth.

      Lord Castleton laughed. But he did not quite like this little speech. He considered himself the least bumptious of men about his rank. But there was something in Jacynth's words—a twang, not only of bitterness, but of contempt—which Lord Castleton inwardly pronounced to be "bad form." But Jacynth was sore, poor wretch! Terribly sore! However, his lordship compressed his narrative somewhat, as being very doubtful what venomed criticism might be lurking in the barrister's mind.

      "Well, the main point of the story is what happened after the colonel's death, and when Frank Onslow and his wife went up to town. Only I thought it well to give you a glimpse of the ​madcap sort of life the girl had been allowed to lead, because it, to some degree, explains a good deal of her reckless way of carrying on."

      Lord Castleton fancied he heard Jacynth mutter under his breath, "Poor child!" But the clean-shaven, firmly molded jaw looked set and grim when he glanced at it; and a countenance less expressive of any "compunctious visitings" of sentiment than the countenance of Clitheroe Jacynth, barrister-at-law, as it appeared in that moment, it would be difficult to imagine.

      "Lady Francis made one of the biggest sensations I can remember, when she began to get into the swing of London society. She had been presented on her marriage, of course. But then Frank had carried her off to the cottage in Surrey, and the world had seen no more of her, so that now she appeared as a novelty. And she is—well, you know what she is to look at. I know dozens of women handsomer by line and rule. But there's something fetching about Fenella that I never saw equaled. And then the old game began again. Fellows were mad about her, and she flirted in the wildest way."

      "The Romeo-and-Juliet passion having meanwhile died a natural death?" said Jacynth, staring straight before him.

      "Oh, I suppose' so. The fact is, she is a butterfly kind of creature that no man ought ever to have taken seriously."

      ​"And the husband——"

      "Frank was—well, the fact is, Frank acted like a fool. He was very young, too, you know. They were like a couple of children together, and used to squabble, and kiss, and make it up like children. Frank never had the least suspicion of jealousy about her, though. Never—until—"

      "Exactly!" СКАЧАТЬ