Read Ebook: Frances Kane's Fortune by Meade L T

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Ebook has 877 lines and 58584 words, and 18 pages

"What's come to Miss Frances?" he said to himself. "She looks rare and handsome, and she's none so old."

The question of the bees was attended to, and then Frances paced about in the mellow June twilight until it was time for her father to have his coffee. She came in then, sat down rather in the shadow, and spoke abruptly. Her heart was beating with great bounds, and her voice sounded almost cold in her effort to steady it.

"Father, I, too, have had a letter to-day."

"Ay, ay, my love. I saw that the carrier brought two. Was it of any importance? If not, we might go on with our 'History of Greece.' I was interested in where we left off last night. You might read to me for an hour before I go to bed, Frances; unless, indeed, you have anything more to say about Fluff, dear little soul! Do you know, it occurred to me that we ought to get fresh curtains and knickknacks for her room? It ought to look nice for her, dear, bright little thing!"

"So it shall, father." There was no shade of impatience in Frances's tone. "We will talk of Fluff presently. But it so happens that my letter was of importance. Father, you remember Philip Arnold?"

"Arnold--Arnold? Dimly, my dear, dimly. He was here once, wasn't he? I rather fancy that I heard of his death. What about him, Frances?"

Frances placed her hand to her fast-beating heart. Strange--her father remembered dimly the man she had thought of, and dreamed of, and secretly mourned for for ten long years.

"Philip Arnold is not dead," she said, still trying to steady her voice. "It was a mistake, a false rumor. He has explained it--my letter was from him."

"Really, my love? Don't you think there is a slight draught coming from behind that curtain? I am so sensitive to draughts, particularly after hot days. Oblige me, Frances, my dear, by drawing that curtain a little more to the right. Ah, that is better. So Arnold is alive. To tell the truth, I don't remember him very vividly, but of course I'm pleased to hear that he is not cut off in his youth. A tall, good-looking fellow, wasn't he? Well, well, this matter scarcely concerns us. How about the dimity in the room which will be Fluff's? My dear Frances, what is the matter? I must ask you not to fidget so."

Frances sprung suddenly to her feet.

"Father, you must listen to me. I am going to say something which will startle you. All these quiet years, all the time which has gone by and left only a dim memory of a certain man to you, have been spent by me smothering down regrets, stifling my youth, crushing what would have made me joyous and womanly--for Philip Arnold has not been remembered at all dimly by me, father, and when I heard of his death I lived through something which seemed to break the spring of energy and hope in me. I did not show it, and you never guessed, only you told me to-day that I had never been young, that I had never been either child or girl. Well, all that is over now, thank God! hope has come back to me, and I have got my lost youth again. You will have two young creatures about the house, father, and won't you like it?"

"I don't know," said the squire. He looked up at his daughter in some alarm; her words puzzled him; he was suddenly impressed too by the brightness in her eyes, and the lovely coloring on her cheeks.

"What is all this excitement, Frances?" he said. "Speak out; I never understand riddles."

Frances sat down as abruptly as she had risen.

"The little excitement was a prelude to my letter, dear father," she said. "Philip is alive, and is coming to England immediately. Ten years ago he saw something in me--I was only eighteen then--he saw something which gave him pleasure, and--and--more. He says he gave me his heart ten years ago, and now he is coming to England to know if I will accept him as my husband. That is the news which my letter contains, father. You see, after all, my letter is important--as important as yours."

"Bless me!" said the squire. The expression of his face was not particularly gratified; his voice was not too cordial. "A proposal of marriage to you, Frances? Bless me!--why, I can scarcely remember the fellow. He was here for a month, wasn't he? It was the summer before your mother died. I think it is rather inconsiderate of you to tell me news of this sort just before I go to bed, my dear. I don't sleep over-well, and it is bad to lie down with a worry on your pillow. I suppose you want me to answer the letter for you, Frances, but I'll do nothing of the kind, I can tell you. If you encouraged the young man long ago, you must get out of it as best you can now."

"Out of it, father? Oh, don't you understand?"

"Then you mean to tell me you care for him? You want to marry a fellow whom you haven't seen for ten years! And pray what am I to do if you go away and leave me?"

"Something must be managed," said Frances.

She rose again. Her eyes no longer glowed happily; her lips, so sweet five minutes ago, had taken an almost bitter curve.

"We will talk this over quietly in the morning, dear father," she said. "I will never neglect you, never cast you aside; but a joy like this can not be put out of a life. That is, it can not be lightly put away. I have always endeavored to do my duty--God will help me to do it still. Now shall I ring for prayers?"

AFTER TEN YEARS.

When Frances got to her room she took out pen and ink, and without a moment's hesitation wrote an answer to her letter.

"MY DEAR PHILIP,--I have not forgotten you--I remember the old times, and all the things to which you alluded in your letter. I thought you were dead, and for the last three or four years always remembered you as one who had quite done with this world. Your letter startled me to-day, but your hope about me has been abundantly fulfilled, for I have never for a moment forgotten you. Philip, you have said very good words to me in your letter, and whatever happens, and however matters may be arranged between us in the future, I shall always treasure the words, and bless you for comforting my heart with them. But, Philip, ten years is a long time--in ten years we none of us stay still, and in ten years some of us grow older than others. I think I am one of those who grow old fast, and nothing would induce me to engage myself to you, or even to tell you that I care for you, until after we have met again. When you reach England--I will send this letter to the address you give me in London--come down here. My dear and sweet mother is dead, but I dare say my father will find you a room at the Firs, and if not, there are good lodgings to be had at the White Hart in the village. If you are of the same mind when you reach England as you were when you wrote this letter, come down to the old place, and let us renew our acquaintance. If, after seeing me, you find I am not the Frances you had in your heart all these years, you have only to go away without speaking, and I shall understand. In any case, thank you for the letter, and believe me, yours faithfully,

"FRANCES KANE."

This letter was quickly written, as speedily directed and stamped, and, wrapping her red shawl over her head, Frances herself went out in the silent night, walked half a mile to the nearest pillar-box, kissed the letter passionately before she dropped it through the slit, and then returned home, with the stars shining over her, and a wonderful new peace in her heart. Her father's unsympathetic words were forgotten, and she lived over and over again on what her hungry heart had craved for all these years.

The next morning she was up early; for the post of housekeeper, head-gardener, general accountant, factotum, amanuensis, reader, etc., to John Kane, Esq., of the Firs, was not a particularly light post, and required undivided attention, strong brains, and willing feet, from early morning to late night every day of the week. Frances was by no means a grumbling woman, and if she did not go through her allotted tasks with the greatest possible cheerfulness and spirit, she performed them ungrudgingly, and in a sensible, matter-of-fact style.

On this particular morning, however, the joy of last night was still in her face; as she followed Watkins about, her merry laugh rang in the air; work was done in half the usual time, and never done better, and after breakfast she was at leisure to sit with her father and read to him as long as he desired it.

"Well, Frances," he said, in conclusion, after the reader's quiet voice had gone on for over an hour and a half, "you have settled that little affair of last night, I presume, satisfactorily. I have thought the whole matter over carefully, my love, and I have really come to the conclusion that I can not spare you. You see you are, so to speak, necessary to me, dear. I thought I would mention this to you now, because in case you have not yet written to that young Arnold, it will simplify matters for you. I should recommend you not to enter on the question of your own feelings at all, but state the fact simply--'My father can not spare me.'"

"I wrote to Philip last night," said Frances. "I have neither refused him nor accepted him. I have asked him on a visit here; can we put him up at the Firs?"

"Only I think it right to mention to you, father"--here Frances stood up and laid her long, slender white hand with a certain nervous yet imperative gesture on the table--"I think it right to mention that if, after seeing me, Philip still wishes to make me his wife, I shall accept him."

"My dear!" Squire Kane started. Then a satisfied smile played over his face. "You say this as a sort of bravado, my dear. But we really need not discuss this theme; it positively wearies me. Have you yet made up your mind, Frances, what room Ellen's dear child is to occupy?"

FLUFF.

The day on which Ellen Danvers arrived at the Firs was long remembered, all over the place, as the hottest which had been known in that part of the country for many a long year. It was the first week of July, and the sun blazed fiercely and relentlessly--not the faintest little zephyr of a breeze stirred the air--in the middle of the day, the birds altogether ceased singing, and the Firs, lying in its sheltered valley, was hushed into a hot, slumberous quiet, during which not a sound of any sort was audible.

Even the squire preferred a chair in the south parlor, which was never a cool room, and into which the sun poured, to venturing abroad; even he shuddered at the thought of the South Walk to-day. He was not particularly hot--he was too old for that--but the great heat made him feel languid, and presently he closed his eyes and fell into a doze.

Frances, who in the whole course of her busy life never found a moment for occasional dozes, peeped into the room, smiled with satisfaction when she saw him, tripped lightly across the floor to steal a pillow comfortably under his white head, arranged the window-curtains so as to shade his eyes, and then ran upstairs with that swift and wonderfully light movement which was habitual to her. She had a great deal to do, and she was not a person who was ever much affected by the rise or fall of the temperature. First of all, she paid a visit to a charming little room over the porch. It had lattice windows, which opened like doors, and all round the sill, and up the sides, and over the top of the window, monthly roses and jasmine, wistaria and magnolia, climbed. A thrush had built its nest in the honeysuckle over the porch window, and there was a faint sweet twittering sound heard there now, mingled with the perfume of the roses and jasmine. The room inside was all white, but daintily relieved here and there with touches of pale blue, in the shape of bows and drapery. The room was small, but the whole effect was light, cool, pure. The pretty bed looked like a nest, and the room, with its quaint and lovely window, somewhat resembled a bower.

Frances looked round it with pride, gave one or two finishing touches to the flowers which stood in pale-blue vases on the dressing-table, then turned away with a smile on her lips. There was another room just beyond, known in the house as the guest-chamber proper. It was much more stately and cold, and was furnished with very old dark mahogany; but it, too, had a lovely view over the peaceful homestead, and Frances's eyes brightened as she reflected how she and Ellen would transform the room with heaps of flowers, and make it gay and lovely for a much-honored guest.

She looked at her watch, uttered a hurried exclamation, fled to her own rather insignificant little apartment, and five minutes later ran down-stairs, looking very fresh, and girlish, and pretty, in a white summer dress. She took an umbrella from the stand in the hall, opened it to protect her head, and walked fast up the winding avenue toward the lodge gates.

"I hear some wheels, Miss Frances," said Watkins's old wife, hobbling out of the house. "Eh, but it is a hot day; we'll have thunder afore night, I guess. Eh, Miss Frances, but you do look well, surely."

"I feel it," said Frances, with a very bright smile. "Ah, there's my little cousin--poor child! how hot she must be. Well, Fluff, so here you are, back with your old Fanny again!"

There was a cry--half of rapture, half of pain--from a very small person in the lumbering old trap. The horse was drawn up with a jerk, and a girl, with very little of the woman about her, for she was still all curls, and curves, and child-like roundness, sprung lightly out of the trap, and put her arms round Frances's neck.

"Oh, Fan, I am glad to see you again! Here I am back just the same as ever; I haven't grown a bit, and I'm as much a child as ever. How is your father? I was always so fond of him. Is he as faddy as of old? That's right; my mission in life is to knock fads out of people. Frances dear, why do you look at me in that perplexed way? Oh, I suppose because I'm in white. But I couldn't wear black on a day like this, as it wouldn't make mother any happier to know that every breath I drew was a torture. There, we won't talk of it. I have a black sash in my pocket; it's all crumpled, but I'll tie it on, if you'll help me. Frances dear, you never did think, did you, that trouble would come to me? but it did. Fancy Fluff and trouble spoken of in the same breath; it's like putting a weight of care on a butterfly; it isn't fair--you don't think it fair, do you, Fan?"

The blue eyes were full of tears; the rosy baby lips pouted sorrowfully.

"We won't talk of it now, at any rate, darling," said Frances, stooping and kissing the little creature with much affection.

Ellen brightened instantly.

"Of course we won't. It's delicious coming here; how wise it was of mother to send me! I shall love being with you more than anything. Why, Frances, you don't look a day older than when I saw you last."

"My father says," returned Frances, "that I age very quickly."

"But you don't, and I'll tell him so. Oh, no, he's not going to say those rude, unpleasant things when I'm by. How old are you, Fan, really? I forget."

"I am twenty-eight, dear."

"Are you?"

Fluff's blue eyes opened very wide.

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