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Ragged Lady, a novel by William Dean Howells |
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Part 2 - Chapter 18 |
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_ Part II Chapter XVIII
The girl did not see her again till Mrs. Milray came up on the promenade at the hour when people who have eaten too much breakfast begin to spoil their appetite for luncheon with the tea and bouillon of the deck- stewards. She looked fiercely about, and saw Clementina seated in her usual place, but with Lord Lioncourt in her own chair next her husband, and Ewins on foot before her. They were both talking to Clementina, whom Lord Lioncourt was accusing of being in low spirits unworthy of her last night's triumphs. He jumped up, and offered his place, "I've got your chair, Mrs. Milray." "Oh, no," she said, coldly, "I was just coming to look after Mr. Milray. But I see he's in good hands." She turned away, as if to make the round of the deck, and Ewins hurried after her. He came back directly, and said that Mrs. Milray had gone into the library to write letters. He stayed, uneasily, trying to talk, but with the air of a man who has been snubbed, and has not got back his composure. Lord Lioncourt talked on until he had used up the incidents of the night before, and the probabilities of their getting into Queenstown before morning; then he and Mr. Ewins went to the smoking-room together, and Clementina was left alone with Milray. "Clementina," he said, gently, "I don't see everything; but isn't there some trouble between you and Mrs. Milray?" "Why, I don't know what it can be," answered the girl, with trembling lips. "I've been trying to find out, and I can't undastand it." "Ah, those things are often very obscure," said Milray, with a patient smile. Clementina wanted to ask him if Mrs. Milray had said anything to him about her, but she could not, and he did not speak again till he heard her stir in rising from her chair. Then he said, "I haven't forgotten that letter to my sister, Clementina. I will give it to you before we leave the steamer. Are you going to stay in Liverpool, over night, or shall you go up to London at once?" "I don't know. It will depend upon how Mrs. Landa feels." "Well, we shall see each other again. Don't be worried." He looked up at her with a smile, and he could not see how forlornly she returned it. As the day passed, Mrs. Milray's angry eyes seemed to search her out for scorn whenever Clementina found herself the centre of her last night's celebrity. Many people came up and spoke to her, at first with a certain expectation of knowingness in her, which her simplicity baffled. Then they either dropped her, and went away, or stayed and tried to make friends with her because of this; an elderly English clergyman and his wife were at first compassionately anxious about her, and then affectionately attentive to her in her obvious isolation. Clementina's simple-hearted response to their advances appeared to win while it puzzled them; and they seemed trying to divine her in the strange double character she wore to their more single civilization. The theatrical people thought none the worse of her for her simple-hearted ness, apparently; they were both very sweet to her, and wanted her to promise to come and see them in their little box in St. John's Wood. Once, indeed, Clementina thought she saw relenting in Mrs. Milray's glance, but it hardened again as Lord Lioncourt and Mr. Ewins came up to her, and began to talk with her. She could not go to her chair beside Milray, for his wife was now keeping guard of him on the other side with unexampled devotion. Lord Lioncourt asked her to walk with him and she consented. She thought that Mr. Ewins would go and sit by Mrs. Milray, of course, but when she came round in her tour of the ship, Mrs. Milray was sitting alone beside her husband. After dinner she went to the library and got a book, but she could not read there; every chair was taken by people writing letters to send back from Queenstown in the morning; and she strayed into the ladies' sitting room, where no ladies seemed ever to sit, and lost herself in a miserable muse over her open page. Some one looked in at the door, and then advanced within and came straight to Clementina; she knew without looking up that it was Mrs. Milray. "I have been hunting for you, Miss Claxon," she said, in a voice frostily fierce, and with a bearing furiously formal. "I have a letter to Miss Milray that my busband wished me to write for you, and give you with his compliments." "Thank you," said Clementina. She rose mechanically to her feet, and at the same time Mrs. Milray sat down. "You will find Miss Milray," she continued, with the same glacial hauteur, "a very agreeable and cultivated lady." Clementina said nothing; and Mrs. Milray added, "And I hope she may have the happiness of being more useful to you than I have." "What do you mean, Mrs. Milray? "Clementina asked with unexpected spirit and courage. "I mean simply this, that I have not succeeded in putting you on your guard against your love of admiration--especially the admiration of gentlemen. A young girl can't be too careful how she accepts the attentions of gentlemen, and if she seems to invite them--" "Mrs. Milray cried Clementina. "How can you say such a thing to me?" "How? I shall have to be plain with you, I see. Perhaps I have not considered that, after all, you know nothing about life and are not to blame for things that a person born and bred in the world would understand from childhood. If you don't know already, I can tell you that the way you have behaved with Lord Lioncourt during the last two or three days, and the way you showed your pleasure the other night in his ridiculous flatteries of you, was enough to make you the talk of the whole steamer. I advise you for your own sake to take my warning in time. You are very young, and inexperienced and ignorant, but that will not save you in the eyes of the world if you keep on." Mrs. Milray rose. "And now I will leave you to think of what I have said. Here is the letter for Miss Milray--" Clementina shook her head. "I don't want it." "You don't want it? But I have written it at Mr. Milray's request, and I shall certainly leave it with you!" "If you do," said Clementina, "I shall not take it!" "And what shall I say to Mr. Milray?" "What you have just said to me." "What have I said to you?" "That I'm a bold girl, and that I've tried to make men admi'a me." Mrs. Milray stopped as if suddenly daunted by a fact that had not occurred to her before. "Did I say that?" "The same as that." "I didn't mean that--I--merely meant to put you on your guard. It may be because you are so innocent yourself, that you can't imagine what others think, and--I did it out of my regard for you." Clementina did not answer. Mrs. Milray went on, "That was why I was so provoked with you. I think that for a young girl to stand up and dance alone before a whole steamer full of strangers"--Clementina looked at her without speaking, and Mrs. Milray hastened to say, "To be sure I advised you to do it, but I certainly was surprised that you should give an encore. But no matter, now. This letter--" "I can't take it, Mrs. Milray," said Clementina, with a swelling heart. "Now, listen!" urged Mrs. Milray. "You think I'm just saying it because, if you don't take it I shall have to tell Mr. Milray I was so hateful to you, you couldn't. Well, I should hate to tell him that; but that isn't the reason. There!" She tore the letter in pieces, and threw it on the floor. Clementina did not make any sign of seeing this, and Mrs. Milray dropped upon her chair again. "Oh, how hard you are! Can't you say something to me?" Clementina did not lift her eyes. "I don't feel like saying anything just now." Mrs. Milray was silent a moment. Then she sighed. "Well, you may hate me, but I shall always be your friend. What hotel are you going to in Liverpool? "I don't know," said Clementina. "You had better come to the one where we go. I'm afraid Mrs. Lander won't know how to manage very well, and we've been in Liverpool so often. May I speak to her about it?" "If you want to," Clementina coldly assented. "I see!" said Mrs. Milray. "You don't want to be under the same roof with me. Well, you needn't! But I'll tell you a good hotel: the one that the trains start out of; and I'll send you that letter for Miss Milray." Clemeutina was silent. "Well, I'll send it, anyway." Mrs. Milray went away in sudden tears, but the girl remained dry-eyed. _ |
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