Bonnybell

“ The tender conscience, the high ideal, the strong affections, when brought into friction with the wrongnesses, the basenesses, the coldnesses of everyday life, produce rubs to the temper which are avoided by the cool heart, which does not care enough for anything to ache; the pliant temper, which gives in because nothing matters much; the absence of aspiration, which acquiesces pleasantly in the actual.
Bonnybell was, as her housemates more and more realized, a shining instance of the value of small virtues in daily intercourse. ”

“ Had poor Felicity lived, she would always have been a resource, a refuge, an antidote! She would have been always joyfully grateful for as much of her society as Miss Ransome could spare; as much, that is, as would have been consistent with keeping her well separated from Tom. Tom!
Bonnybell’s thoughts came to a full stop upon the name. Irony, irony! Who was there to prevent her meeting Tom now? Poor Felicity! ”

“ Lady Bletchley lifted her eyebrows. “Commend me to the inconsistency of a woman who piques herself upon being nothing if not consistent! Camilla has always given me to understand that I am imperilling my soul by living in such a sink of iniquity.”
The incredulity of Felicity’s tone was so decidedly increased that Bonnybell felt she was making fausse route. ”

“ The little uplifted face was so touchingly, unresentfully sad, that Felicity decided with relief that the impression of hardly detectable amusement in it, received by her a minute ago, must have been an optical delusion.
“We shall both miss you very much,” she said with sincere cordiality. “When you are not impossible, you are as nice a little girl as one is likely to meet in a summer’s day. I have given you an excellent character, and all that you have got to do is to live up to it.”
“To live up to it!” repeated Bonnybell. ”

“ Aylmer, and Catherine, and Miss Barnacre there. I thought they need not have had Miss Barnacre; but you know how she always gives her opinion about everything, even about your religious views.” Bonnybell sank her voice at this last proof of the Barnacre’s presumption, and was rewarded by hearing a muffled snort of contempt from the direction of Mrs. Tancred. ”

“ Again Bonnybell bowed her head, and across Edward’s memory there flashed in ludicrous incongruity the recollection of Miss Ransome’s views on maternity, as slightly but graphically sketched for his own benefit a few days earlier.
“I have always heard that there is nothing so wearing as a long engagement,” suggested Miss{252} Ransome, presently, with much hesitancy—“nor so ruinous to the appearance,” she was about to add, but thought better of it.
The severity, singularly absent from her latest utterance, here showed signs of returning to Camilla’s eye and tone. ”

“ Lady Bletchley had announced that she was not going out; but abstention from society, as understood by her, was compatible with seeing a large number and variety of people.
Bonnybell had received ample confirmation of the verdict pronounced by the Bond Street hansoms on the first day of her arrival. She had met many young men, gilded and ungilt, in Felicity’s drawing-room, a large number of whom had been obviously willing to endear themselves to her. It was a more respectful form of love than she had been used to in the old days ”

“ Tancred! he has indeed every reason to try to keep Mrs. Tancred alive!” Then, feeling dimly that the reflection had not quite a suitable ring, she hung on it a postscript. “And I am sure,” she said prayerfully, “that I heartily wish it, for both their sakes.”
“I am sure you do,” replied Felicity, but she spoke, or Bonnybell thought so, somewhat slowly, and looked at her rather hard, adding more glibly, “So you see that, considering the uncertainty of everything, it would not be a bad plan to cultivate the Slammers; and I shall see that you have every opportunity for doing so.” ”

“ Bonnybell’s words carried a very delicately sad implication that her efforts to make herself acceptable in her present surroundings had been so unsuccessful as to prevent any sanguine hope of their flourishing better in another soil. Her inward ruminations proceeded a step farther on the path they had begun to tread. “Tom cannot fish for ever ”

“ Leslie Dane walked down the piazza to where Bonnibel's uncle and guardian, Francis Arnold, the millionaire, sat in his easy-chair puffing his evening cigar, and indolently watching the blue wreaths of smoke curling over his head.
Mr. Arnold was a spare, well-made man of sixty-five, with iron-gray hair and beard. His well-cut features were sharp and resolute in contour, and betokened more sternness than Bonnibel Vere ever dreamed of in his unfailing tenderness to herself. ”

“ Word for word he is going over the specious sophistries of Felise, but he is utterly unconscious of the fact. He has been merely a pliant tool in her artful hands, but he believes that he has found out all these facts for himself, and he asserts them with a perfect conviction of truth.
For Bonnibel stands listening in stunned silence to his vehement rhodomontade. She has walked away from him a little way, and stands clinging to the back of a chair, as if to save herself from falling. ”

“ That frank and genial gaze of Bonnyboy’s, which expressed goodness of heart but nothing else, seemed to Grim an “open sesame” to all hearts; and that unawakened something which goes so well with childhood, but not with adult age, filled him with tenderness and a vague anxiety. “My poor lad,” he would murmur to himself, as he caught sight of Bonnyboy’s big perspiring face, with the yellow tuft of hair hanging down over his forehead, “clever you are not; but you have that which the cleverest of us often lack.” ”

“ He is too proud and stubborn to do so voluntarily, and I think that Bonnibel has acquiesced so readily in the plan that he can find no loop-hole of escape from it. She is as proud as he is; besides, she does not love him, and his unreasoning harshness has rendered her perfectly reckless. ”

“ The fairy little bark, the Bonnibel, swept blithely out into the moonlighted waves.
Bonnibel tied her lace handkerchief over her head, and wrapped the shawl about her shoulders.
Somehow her heart began to grow lighter. This moonlight flitting seemed so sweet and romantic.
Her dark-eyed lover sitting opposite lightly swaying the oars [Pg 17] looked handsome as a demi-god to her partial eyes. She trusted him implicitly.
"The king can do no wrong," was her motto. ”

“ It is quite impossible that Bonnibel and this foreign artist should have met before. Anonymous warnings should always be treated with contempt."
And then he remembered the anonymous note he had received at Long Branch two years before.
"That was true," he said to himself. "Bonnibel as good as admitted it, for she would not show me the inscription in the ring, and she refused to give up wearing it. But she said that the giver was dead. Had she had two lovers, then, innocent and youthful as she was? Perhaps she deceived me. Women are not to be trusted, they say. ”

“ I give him due honor as a hero. But, sir, my blood is as blue as Bonnibel's own! I belong to the noblest and best family of the South. True, we lost all our wealth by the late war, but we belong to the first rank yet in point of birth. I can give you perfect satisfaction on these points, sir. And for the rest, I do not propose to claim Bonnibel until I have realized a fortune equal to her own, and added fresh laurels to the name that is already crowned with bays in the far South, from whence I come. My father was an officer in the army, too, sir, and not unknown to fame. ”

“ Arnold had wished to diminish Bonnibel's beauty by giving it so meager a setting she failed in the endeavor. The jewel was too bright to miss extraneous adornment.
The somber black dresses could not dim the gleam of her golden hair, the sparkle of her sea-blue eyes. Her white brow and throat were like the petals of a lily, and with returning health a lovely rose-tint began to flush her cheeks.
Her beauty was a royal dower of which no spite or malignity could deprive her. ”

“ Grim had to laugh in spite of himself at the paternal way in which his son comforted him, as if he were the party to be pitied. Bonnyboy’s unfailing cheerfulness, which had its great charm, began to cause him uneasiness, because he feared it was but another form of stupidity. A cleverer boy would have been sorry for his mistakes and anxious about his own future. But Bonnyboy looked into the future with the serene confidence of a child, and nothing under the sun ever troubled him, except his father’s tendency to worry. ”

“ Word for word, though it gave him inexpressible pain to recall it, he went over the story of his love for Bonnibel Vere, and her uncle's rejection of his suit, and the high words that passed between them. He passed lightly over their farewell, omitting but one thing. It was the story of their moonlight sail and secret marriage. That story was sealed within his breast. He would have died before he would have revealed Bonnibel's fatal secret to any living soul. ”

“ Felise told them of the artist lover who had murdered the millionaire because he would not give him his niece. The excitement only ran higher than before, and people looked at the young creature with even more curiosity and interest than ever.
Bonnibel could not help seeing that she was an object of interest and admiration to everyone about her. She saw that the men sought her side eagerly and often, and that the women were jealous of her. ”

“ Bonnibel cannot repress a smile at the girl's quick gesture of disgust.
"You will like the French people better, I hope, when you stay among them two years, for I shall probably stay in Paris that long. I am going to school there, Lucy. You know that I have never been to school in my life, and my governesses were not strict enough with me. There are many things I do not know yet, that one moving in society I frequent should know. So I am going to learn something yet. It is never too late to mend, you know." ”

“ No warmth or color tinged the strange pallor of her face and lips, no light of love shone in the violet eyes that drooped beneath the sweeping lashes. She spoke and moved like a soundless automaton.
Bonnibel had pleaded for a private marriage, but Colonel Carlyle had set his heart on a marriage at church, with all the paraphernalia of a fashionable wedding. He wanted to show the whole world what a peerless prize he was winning. He had urged the point with the persistency and almost obstinacy that is characteristic of age, and Bonnibel had yielded recklessly. ”

“ As Bonnibel felt the strange touch upon her mouth she wheeled, rearing a little, and the girl’s soft hat was shaken from her head. Roden wondered if he had ever seen anything prettier than the sunlight on the young Virginian’s sun-like curls, and the glossy hide of Bonnibel.
The mare was going quieter now, mincing along and picking up her feet after a fashion much in vogue among equine coquettes. She was beginning to like the feel of the light, firm hands, and to be sensible of the masterly pressure of the strong young knees upon her mighty shoulders. ”

“ You, a poor, penniless, unknown artist!"
"I grant you I am poor, Mr. Arnold," answered Leslie Dane, rising and confronting his accuser with a mien as proud as his own. "But that I have abused your confidence, I deny! Bonnibel loves me as I love her, but I have taken no undue advantage to gain her love. You invited me here, and gave me every opportunity to cultivate her acquaintance. Can you wonder that I learned to love one so sweet and beautiful?" ”

“ But Ola Klemmerud, instead of sitting down, hit Grim repeatedly about the face and head, and it was evident that the elder man, in spite of his strength, was not a match for him in alertness. This dawned presently upon Bonnyboy’s slow comprehension, and his good-natured smile gave way to a flush of excitement. He took two long strides across the floor, pushed his father gently aside, and stood facing his antagonist. He repeated once more his invitation to sit down; to which the latter responded with a slap which made the sparks dance before Bonnyboy’s eyes. Now Bonnyboy became really angry. ”

“ Beautiful as an angel, gentle as a dove. But beauty is a gift of the gods, and seldom given for aught but sorrow."
CHAPTER VIII.
When Bonnibel arrived in New York the day after her rencontre with the sibyl, she found her uncle's fine carriage in waiting for her at the depot. Mrs. Arnold, though she would gladly have cast the girl off, was too much afraid of the world's dictum to carry her wishes into effect. She determined, therefore, that society should have no cause to accuse her of failing in kindness to her husband's orphan niece. ”

“ It was his intention to try stud-farming in Virginia. No better horseman than Roden ever put boot in stirrup. He had, as an old pad-groom once remarked, “a genus for osses.” It was a mania, a fad of the most pronounced type, with him. No woman’s eye had ever possessed for him half the charm that did the full orbs of his favorite mare, Bonnibel, as she gazed lustrously upon him over her well-filled manger. No sheen of woman’s hair had ever vied, in his opinion, with the satin flanks of Bonnibel. What was it to love a woman? ”

“ He is very old, but then he is a millionaire."
She arose, stately, handsome and dignified.
"Felise and I return to New York Saturday," she said. "Will you be strong enough to accompany us?"
"I am afraid not," said Bonnibel, faintly.
"Very well. Your maid and the housekeeper will take care of you in our absence. I will send you a traveling suit of mourning, and when you feel strong enough you can come to us."
"Yes, madam," Bonnibel answered, and the wealthy widow left the room. ”

“ Arnold.
"He will think that Bonnibel is silent because she would sooner sacrifice him than lose her prestige in society, and her brilliant position as the wife of Colonel Carlyle. He will scorn to betray her secret, and will go to his death with the self-sacrifice of a martyr."
"But suppose Colonel Carlyle should let Bonnibel go free? What then?"
Felise laughed softly.
"He will not do so, mother. I have sent him an anonymous letter to-day that will fairly madden him with jealousy. He will never unlock her prison-door until the grass is growing over the handsome face of Leslie Dane." ”