Miss Carrington

“ I went straight to Lady Racial, my dear. There was nothing else for it but to go and speak. She is truly a noble woman—serves us in every way. As she should!—much affected by sight of Evan, and keeps aloof from Beckley Court. The finger of Providence is in all. Adieu! but do pray think of Miss Carrington! It was foolish of her to offend me. Drives and walks—the Duke attentive. Description of him when I embrace you. I give amiable Sir Franks Portuguese dishes. Ah, my dear, if we had none but men to contend against, and only women for our tools! ”

“ The Countess had sealed Miss Carrington's mouth by one of her most dexterous strokes. On leaving the dinner-table over-night, and seeing that Caroline's attack would preclude their instant retreat, the gallant Countess turned at bay. A word aside to Mr. George Uplift, and then the Countess took a chair by Miss Carrington. She did all the conversation, and supplied all the smiles to it, and when a lady has to do that she. is justified in striking, and striking hard, for to abandon the pretence of sweetness is a gross insult from one woman to another. ”

“ Rose would not be so philosophic as her mother. She would grasp at every chance to excuse the deed. He cried out against his scheming sister in an agony, and while he did so, encountered Miss Carrington and Miss. Bonner in deep converse. Juliana pinched her arm,, whereupon Miss Carrington said: 'You look merry this morning, Mr. Harrington': for he was unawares smiling at the image of himself in the mirror of John Raikes. That smile, transformed to a chuckling grimace, travelled to Rose before they met. ”

“ Whatever might be the truth, there was no reason to cast a glance of suspicion toward Carrington Loria. His opinion of Pauline’s possible guilt Stone held in abeyance, and Miss Frayne entering, he greeted her with punctilious politeness and a confidential air, tending to put her at ease.
[223]
“Miss Frayne,” he began, “the situation is a grave one. I am forced to the conclusion, tentatively at least, that Miss Carrington was deliberately poisoned by some one in her own household. It may have been a servant, but it is difficult to imagine how or why a servant could accomplish the deed. ”

“ Carrington clung on desperately to the fringe of society and confronted the world with a sweet, enigmatic smile. But there were moments, tense, panicky moments, when to herself she admitted the bitter truth. She had invariably just failed to secure her footing. Unless she could make good by a successful marriage, she was destined to remain always on society's outskirts, a precarious hanger-on, barely able to scrape along. ”

“ For it had slowly entered the Coroner’s not very alert mind that perhaps the volatile widow had her own plans for the Count’s future, and Miss Carrington did not figure in them. The manner of the witness bore out this theory. She was self-conscious and at times confused. She frequently looked at the Count and then quickly averted her gaze. She blushed and stammered when speaking his name or referring to him. In a word, she acted as a woman might act in regard to a man of whom she was jealous. ”

“ She’s not meek at all. But she always was to Miss Carrington. That, of course, to keep the position, which was both easy and lucrative. Easy, that is, except for my aunt’s temper. That was vented on poor Anita, morning, noon and night.”
“That, then, might give us a motive for Miss Frayne’s desire to be rid of her cruel mistress and to get the inheritance that she knew would come to her at Miss Carrington’s death.”
Pauline shuddered. “I can’t think of such a thing, Mr. Stone, but, if anybody in this house is to be suspected of the awful thing, it can be no one but Anita. ”

“ When I did not hear Miss Carrington’s voice clearly, there were sounds that might have been another person or her own voice speaking more inaudibly.”
“Might it not be that she was merely talking to herself,—soliloquizing?”
“It could not have been that. She spoke definitely and decidedly to some one when she said ‘Your face is beautiful,’ and when she said, ‘I have willed you ten thousand dollars,’ indeed, every thing she said was as if spoken to some hearer; not as one who talks to herself.” ”

“ Not alone was Miss Carrington stiff on this point, the principal and the rest of the faculty were quite as determined that no outside adventures or activities should lower the standard of the girls of Central High.
At the present time the members of the club had a serious fact to contemplate. A girl to fill the part of the "dark lady" in the garden must be found. As it was not a speaking part, the person filling the character must more particularly look as she was described in the play.
"We want a type," said Mr. Mann. "Tall, graceful, brunette, and with queenly carriage. ”

“ The men, I hear, complain that there is no lady at the breakfast-table. They have Miss Carrington to superintend. I read, in the subdued satisfaction of her eyes (completely without colour) , how much she thanks me and the institution of chocolate in bed. Poor Miss Carrington is no match for her opportunities. One may give them to her without dread.
'It is ten on the Sabbath morn. The sweet churchbells are ringing. It seems like a dream. There is nothing but the religion attaches me to England; but that—is not that everything? How I used to sigh on Sundays to hear them in Portugal! ”

“ And now she did grope her way to a seat.
“Are you the teacher here whose name has in it eighteen letters?” asked the girl, anxiously. “I do not read your English, although I speak it. I learn to speak languages easily—it is a gift. My father had it.”
“True,” murmured Miss Carrington. “Belas Salgo was a wonderful linguist.”
“Does your name have the eighteen letters?” pursued Margit, eagerly. She repeated her story about the card on which was printed, or written, the name of the lady whom the Vareys had come to Centerport to see. Miss Carrington listened more quietly, and finally bowed. ”

“ Mann I would come here and explain why my niece cannot take part in any such foolish and inconsequential exhibition as this that you have determined on."
She glared around, and the girls' faces assumed various expressions of disturbance. Some, even, were frightened, for Miss Carrington had always reigned by power of fear.
"I would not allow Margaret to lower herself by appearing in such a play. I disapprove greatly of girls taking boys' parts. The object of the play itself is merely to amuse. There is nothing worth while or educational about it." ”

“ Whatever she said to him bore fruit in a quiet investigation on the principal's part into the pros and cons of the canoe bumping that had brought the Lockwood twins to grief. He heard the testimony of eye witnesses of the collision—something that Miss Carrington had not done.
All that he said to the severe teacher will never be known; but Bobby heard him say for one thing:
"Loyalty—even in school athletics—is a very good thing, Miss Carrington. You will admit that, yourself. And these girls are loyal students. I think they have been punished enough, don't you? ”

“ And she went on, ‘To-morrow all these jewels will be yours,—if you—ah, but will you?’ and then her voice trailed off faintly, and I could hear no more.”
“You heard nothing more at all?”
“Yes; I waited,—oh, I admit I was eavesdropping, but it was so strange I couldn’t help it,—there was silence. It may well be some one else was replying to her, but I could not make out any other person’s words. A low voice would not be audible like a high-pitched one. But after a moment, Miss Carrington resumed; she said, ‘I shall change my will. Not Carr’s half, that must stand. ”

“ He was continually made to feel himself a dependent and an inferior.
These trials also fell to the lot of the two girls. Pauline, although her aunt’s heiress to the extent of half the fortune, the other half to go to an absent cousin, was by no means treated as an equal of Miss Carrington herself. It seemed to give the elder lady delight to domineer over her niece and in every possible way make her life uneasy and uncomfortable. As to the social secretary, Miss Frayne, she was scolded for everything she did, right or wrong. ”

“ Carrington's guard of cool aloofness and something faintly common, a suggestion of the woman who lives by wits, showed itself in the smartly uttered contradiction.
“Plenty of women marry men younger than themselves,” she went on. “Is that your only reason?”
“You know it is not,” answered Lady Rainault quietly. “Mrs. Carrington, need I go into details? You and I both know that there are a hundred reasons why you are an unsuitable wife for my son. Won't you just accept the fact that I can't consent to an engagement between you?” ”

“ The village had not grown as rapidly as had Miss Carrington. The actor estimated that it had suffered as few actual changes since the departure of its solitary follower of Thespis as had a stage upon which “four years is supposed to have elapsed.” He absorbed Cranberry Corners and returned to the city of chameleon changes.
It was in the rathskeller that Highsmith made the hit of his histrionic career. There is no need to name the place; there is but one rathskeller where you could hope to find Miss Posie Carrington after a performance of “The King’s Bath-Robe.” ”

“ I venture, weakly, and with hesitation.
"I do," says my strange visitor, never removing her piercing gaze from my face. "I also wished to see you close. So you are his wife, are you? A child, a mere doll!"
I am so taken aback I can find no reply to make to this speech: every moment renders me more amazed, more thoroughly frightened.
"You are Mrs. Carrington of Strangemore," she goes on, in the purest English, but with an unmistakably foreign accent. "Well, Mrs. Carrington, I have come here to-day to tell you something I fear will be unpalatable to your dainty ears." ”

“ Lady Rainault stared at her in bewilderment.
“The things you've missed?” she repeated.
“Yes. You've always been cared for,” Mrs. Carrington went on with gathering intensity. “I haven't! I've had to fight for my own hand. Everything that came to you naturally—luxury and position and a good time—I've had to get by angling for it. I'm sick of angling, sick of pretending! I want the real thing. And Billy can give it me. I've never had anything, never! I've always been on the edge. Oh, I know what people say; I'm an outsider. ”

“ Lady Jocelyn chuckled.
Miss Carrington was present. She had been formerly sharp in her condemnation of the Countess—her affectedness, her euphuism, and her vulgarity. Now she did not say a word, though she might have done it with impunity.
“I suppose, Emily, you see what Rose is about?” said Mrs. Melville. “I should not have thought it adviseable to have that young man here, myself. I think I let you know that.”
“One young man’s as good as another,” responded her ladyship. “I’ve my doubts of the one that’s much better. I fancy Rose is as good a judge by this time as you or I.”
Mrs. ”

“ Billy enjoyed it, enjoyed it so much that it frightened him. More than once during the evening, as he met the clear, candid gaze of Anne's gray eyes, he had to remind himself that he was engaged, engaged to Mrs. Carrington. And that queer, incomprehensible mingling of fright and elation drove him, the next morning, into announcing his engagement to his mother.
Lady Rainault's reception of the news had not been encouraging. To embolden himself he reiterated the information more firmly:
“Yes. Mrs. Carrington and I are engaged to be married.”
For a moment his mother made no response. ”

“ Every decent instinct in her forbade her taking what he offered. Impulsively she drew away, her body stiffening a little in his eager clasp.
Though she had not spoken, he sensed the significance of her recoil.
“Don't say no!” he exclaimed sharply, his young voice roughening.
“Billy boy, I ought to say—just that!” Mrs. Carrington spoke very quietly. Her eyes looked sad.
“Why ought you?” he demanded hotly.
“Why? Oh, Billy, it's so obvious, isn't it? A man may not marry his grandmother!” ”

“ Almost as though her legs would no longer support her, she sank down into a chair and stared dumbly at Billy's mother. When Lady Rainault spoke again it was rather sorrowfully.
“If you love him, you'll give him up. Just because you do love him. And, if you're brave enough, you'll send him away from you—without any regret that he has to go.”
The door closed quietly behind her. Madeline Carrington sat huddled in her chair, Lady Rainault's last words beating in her brain like a pulse: “Send him away from you—without any regret that he has to go.” ”

“ With what intense longing do I wish undone all that happened yesterday!
Almost as the hall-clock, with its customary uncouthness clangs out four strokes, Mr. Carrington rides up to the door.
As I sit in an upper chamber—like Elaine, but with what different emotions!—watching my lover's coming, I can see he is looking oppressively radiant, and is actually whistling. I begin to hate him. How detestable a man looks when whistling! ”

“ Carrington, I believe I should live in a perpetual state of terror, waiting for some blow to fall to crush such excessive happiness. You know one cannot be prosperous forever."
"I never anticipate evil," return I, lightly. "Surely it is bad enough when it comes, without adding to it by being miserable beforehand. Why, how doleful you look? What is it? You remind me of some youthful swain in love for the first time in his life."
"Perhaps I am."
"In love? How amusing! With whom then? Bebe? Dora? Or some person or persons unknown? Come, surely you may confide with all safety in your hostess." ”