The Fate of Fenella. Various Authors
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"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 out in the undertone both had maintained throughout the conversation.
"That I am a widow," she said coolly; "that is to say, if they turn up the hotel list of visitors."
"What name have you inscribed?" he said coldly.
"Fenella Ffrench. I suppose I have a right to my own name?"
"And the child's?"
"Ronny Onslow."
"What are your trustees about?" he broke out, with subdued passion.
Fenella shrugged her slender shoulders, and laughed. "I was twenty-four years old yesterday," she said, with apparent irrelevance; "did you remember?"
"I remembered," he said curtly.
"Talking of trustees," she said, "will you ever forget the talk, and fuss, and documents that day at Carlton House Terrace? I couldn't help thinking of Lady Caroline Lamb, and how, when she and her husband were required to sign the deed of separation, the pair of them could nowhere be found! When discovered at last, Lady Caroline was on her husband's knee, feeding him with bread and butter! But, though they parted, he loved her all the time," went on Fenella, the little mocking voice grown suddenly wistful; "and it was on his faithful breast that she pillowed her dying head at last, and his kind voice that sped her on her way!"
"Yes," said Frank, in a strained voice; "her faults were more of head than heart. But some women have not even hearts for faults to be bred in. Why did you do it? "he said suddenly, with a mist before his own eyes that hindered him from seeing the tears in hers.
"Hi! Onslow! I say, Onslow!" shouted a voice that seemed to come from beneath the horses' feet, and both the young people peeped over to see a fat little man in white linen clothes, standing on tiptoe on the road, and blowing out his cheeks like a cherub's.
"Why, Castleton!" cried Frank, "what are you doing there?"
"Walking down my fat, dear boy. I was looking heavenward, and saw you coming. Where do you hang out? Beastly water, rotten eggs, rusty iron, and a dash of old Nick. Oh, I say!" (catching sight of Fenella, not quite hidden by her sunshade) "is that really—well, you know, really—I am astonished—and delighted, too! I always said——"
"Drive on!" roared Frank, and on they went upon the instant, .and Frank turned to look at Fenella. She was very pale, and very angry,