Miss Darrell

“ The contrast between the two girls—the delicate beauty of the one, and the grand loveliness of the other—was never more strongly marked.
Lady Darrell laid her white hand, shining with jewels, on Pauline's arm. She looked up into her proud face.
"Pauline," she said, gently, "will you not be friends? We have to live together—will you be friends?"
"No!" replied Miss Darrell, in her clear, frank voice. "I gave you warning. You paid no heed to it. We shall never be friends." [178]
A faint smile played round Lady Darrell's lips. ”

“ Darrell has kept his keen sight upon her movements—upon her countenance. He sees her gesture—her look—as she now clings to her grandfather. The blue eyes are not now coldly fixed on level air, but raised upward as for strength from above. The young face is sublime with its woe, and with its resolve.
"Noble child," muttered Darrell, "I think I see into her heart. If so, poor Lionel, indeed! My pride has yielded, hers never will!" ”

“ And, though every muscle was tensed with horror at the touch of the thing, not a tremor showed in his impassive face.
A man stepped forward and thrust the cord through the hole with deft fingers. The silky thing slid loosely across the secret-service agent's throat, feeling to his raw, quivering nerves like the touch of a snake. For a second it dangled there, and then began slowly to tighten. Darrell's eyes were fixed on the smooth water of the bay, rippling in the morning sun. In another moment the whole picture would vanish. ”

“ There was silence for some minutes, and then Sir Vane asked:
"Tell me, Pauline—do you think that Lady Darrell would marry him if she knew what you have just told me?"
"I am sure she would not. She is very worldly, and only lives what one may call a life of appearances; she would not marry him if she knew him to be a thief—she would shrink from him. Elegant, polished, amiable women like Lady Darrell are frightened at crime." ”

“ Darrell, he authorised Mrs. Lyndsay to propose such a salary as could not fail to secure a teacher of such rare qualifications. And thus Arabella became governess to Miss Darrell.
There is a kind of young lady of whom her nearest relations will say, "I can't make that girl out." Matilda Darrell was that kind of young lady. She talked very little; she moved very noiselessly; she seemed to regard herself as a secret which she had solemnly sworn not to let out. She had been steeped in slyness from her early infancy by a sly mother. Mrs. Darrell was a woman who had always something to conceal. ”

“ The prospect of a tete-a-tete with Miss Darrell did not strike the captain as being a very rapturous one.
"She is," he said to himself, "a magnificently handsome [75] girl, but almost too haughty to be bearable. I have never, in all my life, felt so small as I do when she speaks to me or looks at me, and no man likes that sort of thing."
But Darrell Court was a magnificent estate, the large annual income was a sum he had never even dreamed of, and all might be his—Sir Oswald had said so; his, if he could but win the proud heart of the proudest girl it had ever been his fortune to meet. ”

“ If Darrell does not choose to marry and have sons of his own, he has no right to load a poor boy with benefits, and say: ‘There is but one way to prove your gratitude; remember my ancestors, and be miserable for the rest of your days!’ Darrell, forsooth, intends to leave to Lionel the transmission of the old Darrell name; and the old Darrell name must not be tarnished by the marriage on which Lionel has unluckily set his heart! I respect the old name; but it is not like the House of Vipont—a British Institution. ”

“ Lady Darrell had already written to Omberleigh, and, through an agent there, had secured beautiful apartments. When Miss Hastings half remonstrated with her, she laughed.
"I have nothing to do," she said, "but make every one happy; and it is my duty to find you always a comfortable home."
Lady Darrell looked, as she was in those days, a most happy woman. She seemed to have grown younger and fairer. The height of her ambition, the height of her happiness, was reached at last. She was rich in the world's goods, and it was in her power to make the man she loved rich and powerful too. ”

“ The lamplight shone full upon Mrs. Darrell’s face, and Eleanor could see now that the face was a handsome one, though faded and careworn. The widow’s hair was gray, but her eyes retained the flashing brightness of youth. They were very dark and lustrous, but their expression was scarcely pleasant. There was too much of the hawk or eagle in their penetrating glance.
But Laura Mason did not seem at all afraid of her protectress.
“Miss Vincent and I are good friends already, Mrs. Darrell,” she said, gaily, “and we shall be as happy together as the day is long, I hope.” ”

“ Darrell raised his head, his eyes looking straight into the searching dark eyes, so like his own.
"My little mother," he replied, tenderly, "don't think that your teachings all the past years or the lessons of your own sweet life were lost in those two years; their influence lived even when memory had failed."
He bent and kissed her, then added: "She was scarcely more than a child; not so brilliant, perhaps, as Marion, but beautiful, good, and pure as the driven snow."
Hearing his father's voice outside, Darrell rose and, picking up his journal, opened it at the story of his love and Kate's. ”

“ She found herself whirling around the room in Darrell’s arms. For a wonder, although an Englishman, he knew how to dance, and Elizabeth was [19] intensely susceptible to rhythm and music. She felt when she began to waltz with Darrell, as if she would like to waltz forever with him. He was so strong, so supple, so graceful,—so susceptible, like herself, to that charm of dance music in which two people dancing together are conscious of that sensuous counterpart of real love which makes a man and a woman feel as if they constituted one being with a single heart and a single soul. ”

“ HONORIA.—"Is Mr. Darrell so fond of music, then?"
COLONEL MORLEY.—"One would not have thought it. He keeps a secretary at Fawley who plays the flute. There's something very interesting about Darrell. I wish you could hear his ideas on marriage and domestic life: more freshness of heart than in the young men one meets nowadays. It may be prejudice; but it seems to me that the young fellows of the present race, if more sober and staid than we were, are sadly wanting in character and spirit,—no warm blood in their veins. ”

“ Does he know who listens yonder? Old members think so,—smile; whisper each other, and glance significantly where Darrell sits.
Sits, as became him, tranquil, respectful, intent, seemingly, perhaps really, unconscious of the sensation he excites. What an eye for an orator! how like the eye in a portrait; it seems to fix on each other eye that seeks it,—steady, fascinating. ”

“ Arabella was startled by the intellect and character of Darrell into that kind of homage which a woman, who has hitherto met but her own intellectual inferiors, renders to the first distinguished personage in whom she recognises, half with humility and half with awe, an understanding and a culture to which her own reason is but the flimsy glass-house, and her own knowledge but the forced exotic. ”

“ Allow me to observe, Miss Darrell, that I suffered through the 'principles of politeness' when I was an innocent and guileless little shaver, in checked pinafores, and I hope I know the proprieties better than to laugh at a lady. A fellow that would laugh at a young woman, Miss Darrell, deserves to be—to be—a—a mark for the finger of scorn to poke fun at! Yes, Miss Darrell, I repeat it, he deserves to be a—I don't know what he doesn't deserve to be!" said Mr. Wildair, firmly. [Pg 58]
"Well," said Georgia, rather mollified, "and what did you come up here for, anyway, eh?" ”

“ It was a sultry afternoon, and we were spending it in a rustic summer-house at the end of a broad gravel that went the whole length of the large garden. Milly had her drawing materials on the table before her, but had not been using them. I was busy with a piece of fancy-work which Miss Susan Bagshot had given me to finish. We were sitting like this, when my old acquaintance Sarah, the housemaid, came to announce a visitor for Miss Darrell.
Milly sprang to her feet, flushed with excitement.
'It must be papa!' she cried joyfully.
'Lor', no, miss; don't you go to excite yourself like that. ”

“ These are only a few of the things that I know all about, but I tell you, Elizabeth Darrell, that they all seem like milk and water compared with what I feel for you. Do you know that the first time I saw you, when you were a mere slip of a girl, that night I crushed your little pearl heart under my foot, I felt a strange, even a superstitious interest in you? I never forgot you; and the first moment I saw you that Sunday afternoon, last November, something came over me which made everything in the [384] world seem small, beside the thought of winning you. ”

“ A little later, as Darrell in the early twilight passed up the driveway to The Pines, he was conscious only of a dull, leaden weight within his breast; his very senses seemed benumbed and he almost believed himself incapable of further suffering, till, as he approached the house, the sight of Kate seated in the veranda with her father and aunt and the thought of the suffering yet in store for her thrilled him anew with most poignant pain. ”

“ Who need ever know that George Darrell, digger, of Red Shirt Rush, Vaal River, was the same man as Darrell of the Lancers, who like a fool made his good old name shameful by giving it to the woman he had married. He cursed his folly as he remembered himself little more than a boy marrying a woman years older than himself, who, wild as he was then, was as much his inferior morally as she was socially. ”

“ I used to write my home-letters in her room on these rare and happy afternoons, while she painted at an easel near the window. The room was small, but better furnished than the ordinary rooms in the house, and it was brightened by all sorts of pretty things,—handsomely-bound books upon hanging shelves, pictures, Dresden cups and saucers, toilet-bottles and boxes, which Miss Darrell had brought from home. Over the mantelpiece there was a large photograph of her father, and by the bedside there hung a more flattering water-coloured portrait, painted by Milly herself. ”

“ Darrell might have answered in the affirmative with truth. What man, after long years of solitude, is not refreshed by talk, however trivial, that recalls to him the gay time of the world he remembered in his young day,—and recalls it to him on the lips of a friend in youth! But Darrell said nothing; only he settled himself in his chair with a more cheerful ease, and inclined his relaxing brows with a nod of encouragement or assent.
Colonel Morley continued. "But when did you arrive? whence? How long do you stay here? What are your plans?" ”

“ Dig but deep enough, and under all earth runs water, under all life runs grief.
Alone in the streets, the vivacity which had characterized Darrell’s countenance as well as his words, while with his old school friend, changed as suddenly and as completely into pensive abstracted gloom as if he had been acting a part, and with the exit the acting ceased. Disinclined to return yet to the solitude of his home, he walked on at first mechanically, in the restless desire of movement, he cared not whither. ”

“ But what was the remembrance or the grief, Alban Morley, who knew everything, was quite persuaded that Darrell would never suffer him to know. Could it be in any way connected with those three young ladies to whom Darrell’s attentions had been so perversely impartial? The Colonel did not fail to observe that to those young ladies Darrell’s letter made no allusion. Was it not possible that he had really felt for one of them a deeper sentiment than a man advanced in years ever likes to own even to his nearest friend—hazarded a proposal, and met with a rebuff? ”

“ For here it was not Darrell’s taste that was delighted; it was Darrell’s heart that, ever hungry, had found food. His heart was connecting those long-neglected memorials of an ambition baffled and relinquished—here with a nation, there with his father’s grave! How his eyes sparkled! how his lip smiled! Nobody would have guessed it—none of us know each other; least of all do we know the interior being of those whom we estimate by public repute;—but what a world of simple, fond affection lay coiled and wasted in that proud man’s solitary breast! ”

“ The necklace around her milky white throat looked like moonlight and starlight combined.
“You will make a sensation to-night, my girl,” said Darrell, kissing her.
“If you like my looks, that is the main point,” replied Elizabeth. She habitually made him these pretty speeches, which was gratifying to Darrell, as the husband of a beauty.
They went to the ball, which had a gayety unsurpassed in balls. It established Elizabeth’s place in society as one of the beauties of the season. She received vast attention from those London exquisites who claim to fix a woman’s place in beauty’s calendar. ”

“ Darrell is unjust to the more exquisite female characters of a Novelist, admirable for strength of sense, correctness of delineation, terseness of narrative, and lucidity of style—nor less admirable for the unexaggerated nobleness of sentiment by which some of her heroines are notably distinguished. ”