A NARROW ESCAPE.
I should never have thought of my amiable friend, Mrs. Denison, as the heroine of such a tale as she related to me one evening in the autumnal twilight. Yet she, a timid, sentimental old lady, had really been placed in a position of extraordinary trial, and had come nobly out of it. And she told the adventure with an utter unconsciousness of anything heroic in her conduct, which added a strange charm to her recital.
When I was about seventeen or eighteen, (she said,) my father took me for change of air, after a slight illness, to the sea-side. I was romantic; moreover, I had been motherless from my infancy, and my dreamy fancies had received no check from the dull routine of my school-life, nor from my association with girls as silly as myself.
Shortly after our arrival at the watering-place, I was struck by the appearance of three people, who were often to be seen together of an evening on the sands. One was a very handsome woman of about forty-five; the others appeared to be her son and daughter. The son was one of the most interesting persons I ever saw. The daughter, who was about my own age, was very pretty. The mother was a cripple. She was drawn nearly every day to the same spot on the sands, and sat there watching the setting sun, while her children occupied themselves with gathering shells. Occasionally we met the brother and sister riding, and my father declared that he had never seen so good a horsewoman as the young lady.
One evening, as I was sitting on a low black rock or stone, near her chair, the elder lady spoke to me with a civil apology for troubling a stranger. She asked me if I could distinguish whether her son and daughter were on the beach. Her sight was too bad for her to see herself. I looked, and replied in the negative. She seemed anxious and uneasy, and kept turning her eyes in the direction from whence she appeared to expect them. I asked if she required anything? She thanked me, but replied that she wanted nothing; only she was anxious for her daughter’s appearance; she feared accidents when they were late home.
“I should think you could have no cause for fear,” I said, “your daughter rides so well.”
She assented with a sigh.
“I dare say,” she added, “I am foolishly nervous, but my life is a trying and monotonous one, and affords time for idle fears.”
I was sorry for her; it was very sad to be helpless and crippled at her age, and with her apparent health, so we gradually fell into conversation. Mrs. Deloraine—I remember what a charming name I thought it—was not very lady-like, still she was not vulgar. I could see she was not a highly-bred person; nevertheless she was interesting and clever, and had a very fascinating way of her own. After a time, the son and daughter returned; they thanked me for my kind attention to their mother, and were so pleasant and agreeable, that I was enchanted with them.
When I returned home, I teased my father to call on the Deloraines. He demurred at first; we know nothing of these people, he said; it was not wise to pick up acquaintances as one would shells; but I was urgent, and he seldom refused a request made by his motherless girl. He made a few inquiries; ascertained that Mrs. Deloraine and her children lived a quiet, secluded, blameless life in a lonely cottage, on the outskirts of the town; a place which the librarian told him had had the reputation of being haunted, and was let at a low rent; that they paid their bills; and were, apparently, respectable, good people. Then he consented to call on them.
We approached the Deloraines’ dwelling through an orchard and pine-grove, so dismal and gloomy in appearance, that I did not wonder at its ghostly repute. The cottage itself was an old house, built partly of wood, partly of brick. A very ill-looking man-servant opened the door, and ushered us into the drawing-room, where we found Mrs. Deloraine and her daughter.
The former was lying on a sofa placed against the folding-doors. She could not rise to receive us, but she greeted my father and me very warmly, and seemed delighted to make our acquaintance. He thought her manner theatrical and studied; but she managed, nevertheless, to please him, and the acquaintance, thus commenced, progressed into intimacy.
We rode together frequently, accompanied by my father and William Deloraine. I am quite sure that dear father never dreamed of anything like love between William and me; he still thought me a mere child; he was too much occupied by his own affairs to observe my gradual advance towards womanhood.
But I was gradually becoming attached to William Deloraine. He was just the sort of man to please an imaginative young lady like myself. Moreover he constantly betrayed his love for myself, and as constantly recalled the manifestation (if I may say so), by a sudden and distant coldness of manner, which piqued and teased me.
But I am not telling a love tale, and therefore will not linger over those tantalising but bewitching days. On one of them the desired declaration came; William Deloraine, in approved poetic phrase, assured me that he adored me. I referred him, of course, to my father. To my surprise, he hesitated; told me that an unhappy mystery clouded his life;—a fatal secret which he could not as yet reveal even to me; and he implored me to conceal our attachment from my father. Now, though I was very silly and romantic, and William gained an additional hold on my fancy by having a mystery attached to him, I was too honourable a girl to enter into an engagement without my kindest father’s sanction, and I said so at once. He was bitterly disappointed, for he hoped I should have consented to an elopement, or secret marriage; and I grew angry at the supposition.
We had a quarrel, but made it up afterwards, of course; and I promised to keep the secret of his avowal from my father, though I would promise nothing more. He declared also that he should keep his secret from his family; but I guessed that he had told Kate, as she looked vexed and disappointed when next I saw her. Nevertheless, our rides went on as usual.
