Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels

S >> Stephen Leacock >> Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

"Alas," cried Winnifred, while tears rose in her eyes, "it cannot be!"

"Say not so," cried the Marchioness. "Our son, Lord Mordaunt Muddlenut,
is young, handsome, all that a girl could desire. After months of
wandering he returns to us this morning. It is our dearest wish to see
him married and established. We offer you his hand."

"Indeed," replied Winnifred, while her tears fell even more freely, "I
seem to requite but ill the kindness that you show. Alas, my heart is no
longer in my keeping."

"Where is it?" cried the Marchioness.

"It is another's. One whose very name I do not know holds it in his
keeping."

But at this moment a blithe, gladsome step was heard upon the flagstones
of the terrace. A manly, ringing voice, which sent a thrill to
Winnifred's heart, cried "Mother!" and in another instant Lord Mordaunt
Muddlenut, for he it was, had folded the Marchioness to his heart.

Winnifred rose, her heart beating wildly. One glance was enough. The
newcomer, Lord Mordaunt, was none other than the Unknown, the
Unaccountable, to whose protection she had twice owed her life.

With a wild cry Winnifred Clair leaped across the flagstones of the
terrace and fled into the park.

CHAPTER VII

THE PROPOSAL

They stood beneath the great trees of the ancestral park, into which
Lord Mordaunt had followed Winnifred at a single bound. All about them
was the radiance of early June.

Lord Mordaunt knelt on one knee on the greensward, and with a touch in
which respect and reverence were mingled with the deepest and manliest
emotion, he took between his finger and thumb the tip of the girl's
gloved hand.

"Miss Clair," he uttered, in a voice suffused with the deepest
yearning, yet vibrating with the most profound respect, "Miss
Clair--Winnifred--hear me, I implore!"

"Alas," cried Winnifred, struggling in vain to disengage the tip of her
glove from the impetuous clasp of the young nobleman, "alas, whither can
I fly? I do not know my way through the wood, and there are bulls in all
directions. I am not used to them! Lord Mordaunt, I implore you, let the
tears of one but little skilled in the art of dissimulation----"

"Nay, Winnifred," said the Young Earl, "fly not. Hear me out!"

"Let me fly," begged the unhappy girl.

"You must not fly," pleaded Mordaunt. "Let me first, here upon bended
knee, convey to you the expression of a devotion, a love, as ardent and
as deep as ever burned in a human heart. Winnifred, be my bride!"

"Oh, sir," sobbed Winnifred, "if the knowledge of a gratitude, a
thankfulness from one whose heart will ever treasure as its proudest
memory the recollection of one who did for one all that one could have
wanted done for one--if this be some poor guerdon, let it suffice. But,
alas, my birth, the dark secret of my birth forbids----"

"Nay," cried Mordaunt, leaping now to his feet, "your birth is all
right. I have looked into it myself. It is as good--or nearly as
good--as my own. Till I knew this, my lips were sealed by duty. While I
supposed that you had a lower birth and I an upper, I was bound to
silence. But come with me to the house. There is one arrived with me who
will explain all."

Hand in hand the lovers, for such they now were, returned to the Chase.
There in the great hall the Marquis and the Marchioness were standing
ready to greet them.

"My child!" exclaimed the noble lady, as she folded Winnifred to her
heart. Then she turned to her son. "Let her know all!" she cried.

Lord Mordaunt stepped across the room to a curtain. He drew it aside,
and there stepped forth Mr. Bonehead, the old lawyer who had cast
Winnifred upon the world.

"Miss Clair," said the Lawyer, advancing and taking the girl's hand for
a moment in a kindly clasp, "the time has come for me to explain all.
You are not, you never were, the penniless girl that you suppose. Under
the terms of your father's will, I was called upon to act a part and to
throw you upon the world. It was my client's wish, and I followed it. I
told you, quite truthfully, that I had put part of your money into
options in an oil-well. Miss Clair, that well is now producing a million
gallons of gasolene a month!'

"A million gallons!" cried Winnifred. "I can never use it."

"Wait till you own a motor-car, Miss Winnifred," said the Lawyer.

"Then I am rich!" exclaimed the bewildered girl.

"Rich beyond your dreams," answered the Lawyer. "Miss Clair, you own in
your own right about half of the State of Texas--I think it is in Texas,
at any rate either Texas or Rhode Island, or one of those big states in
America. More than this, I have invested your property since your
father's death so wisely that even after paying the income tax and the
property tax, the inheritance tax, the dog tax and the tax on
amusements, you will still have one half of one per cent to spend."

Winnifred clasped her hands.

"I knew it all the time," said Lord Mordaunt, drawing the girl to his
embrace, "I found it out through this good man."

"We knew it too," said the Marchioness. "Can you forgive us, darling,
our little plot for your welfare? Had we not done this Mordaunt might
have had to follow you over to America and chase you all around Newport
and Narragansett at a fearful expense."

"How can I thank you enough?" cried Winnifred. Then she added eagerly,
"And my birth, my descent?"

"It is all right," interjected the Old Lawyer. "It is A 1. Your father,
who died before you were born, quite a little time before, belonged to
the very highest peerage of Wales. You are descended directly from
Claer-ap-Claer, who murdered Owen Glendower. Your mother we are still
tracing up. But we have already connected her with Floyd-ap-Floyd, who
murdered Prince Llewellyn."

"Oh, sir," cried the grateful girl. "I only hope I may prove worthy of
them!"

"One thing more," said Lord Mordaunt, and stepping over to another
curtain he drew it aside and there emerged Lord Wynchgate.

He stood before Winnifred, a manly contrition struggling upon features
which, but for the evil courses of he who wore them, might have been
almost presentable.

"Miss Clair," he said, "I ask your pardon. I tried to carry you off. I
never will again. But before we part let me say that my acquaintance
with you has made me a better man, broader, bigger and, I hope, deeper."

With a profound bow, Lord Wynchgate took his leave.

CHAPTER VIII

WEDDED AT LAST

Lord Mordaunt and his bride were married forthwith in the parish church
of Muddlenut Chase. With Winnifred's money they have drained the moat,
rebuilt the Chase, and chased the bulls out of the park. They have six
children, so far, and are respected, honoured and revered in the
countryside far and wide, over a radius of twenty miles in
circumference.

II

JOHN AND I

OR, HOW I NEARLY LOST MY HUSBAND

(_Narrated after the approved fashion of the best Heart and Home
Magazines_)

_II.--John and I; or, How I Nearly Lost My Husband._

It was after we had been married about two years that I began to feel
that I needed more air. Every time I looked at John across the
breakfast-table, I felt as if I must have more air, more space.

I seemed to feel as if I had no room to expand. I had begun to ask
myself whether I had been wise in marrying John, whether John was really
sufficient for my development. I felt cramped and shut in. In spite of
myself the question would arise in my mind whether John really
understood my nature. He had a way of reading the newspaper, propped up
against the sugar-bowl, at breakfast, that somehow made me feel as if
things had gone all wrong. It was bitter to realize that the time had
come when John could prefer the newspaper to his wife's society.

But perhaps I had better go back and tell the whole miserable story from
the beginning.

I shall never forget--I suppose no woman ever does--the evening when
John first spoke out his love for me. I had felt for some time past that
it was there. Again and again, he seemed about to speak. But somehow his
words seemed to fail him. Twice I took him into the very heart of the
little wood beside Mother's house, but it was only a small wood, and
somehow he slipped out on the other side. "Oh, John," I had said, "how
lonely and still it seems in the wood with no one here but ourselves! Do
you think," I said, "that the birds have souls?" "I don't know," John
answered, "let's get out of this." I was sure that his emotion was too
strong for him. "I never feel a bit lonesome where you are, John," I
said, as we made our way among the underbrush. "I think we can get out
down that little gully," he answered. Then one evening in June after tea
I led John down a path beside the house to a little corner behind the
garden where there was a stone wall on one side and a high fence right
in front of us, and thorn bushes on the other side. There was a little
bench in the angle of the wall and the fence, and we sat down on it.

"Minnie," John said, "there's something I meant to say----"

"Oh, John," I cried, and I flung my arms round his neck. It all came
with such a flood of surprise.

"All I meant, Minn----" John went on, but I checked him.

"Oh, don't, John, don't say anything more," I said. "It's just too
perfect." Then I rose and seized him by the wrist. "Come," I said, "come
to Mother," and I rushed him along the path.

As soon as Mother saw us come in hand in hand in this way, she guessed
everything. She threw both her arms round John's neck and fairly pinned
him against the wall. John tried to speak, but Mother wouldn't let him.
"I saw it all along, John," she said. "Don't speak. Don't say a word. I
guessed your love for Minn from the very start. I don't know what I
shall do without her, John, but she's yours now; take her." Then Mother
began to cry and I couldn't help crying too. "Take him to Father,"
Mother said, and we each took one of John's wrists and took him to
Father on the back verandah. As soon as John saw Father he tried to
speak again--"I think I ought to say," he began, but Mother stopped him.
"Father," she said, "he wants to take our little girl away. He loves her
very dearly, Alfred," she said, "and I think it our duty to let her go,
no matter how hard it is, and oh, please Heaven, Alfred, he'll treat her
well and not misuse her, or beat her," and she began to sob again.

Father got up and took John by the hand and shook it warmly.

"Take her, boy," he said. "She's all yours now, take her."

So John and I were engaged, and in due time our wedding day came and we
were married. I remember that for days and days before the wedding day
John seemed very nervous and depressed; I think he was worrying, poor
boy, as to whether he could really make me happy and whether he could
fill my life as it should be filled. But I told him that he was not to
worry, because I _meant_ to be happy, and was determined just to make
the best of everything.

Father stayed with John a good deal before the wedding day, and on the
wedding morning he went and fetched him to the church in a closed
carriage and had him there all ready when we came. It was a beautiful
day in September, and the church looked just lovely. I had a beautiful
gown of white organdie with _tulle_ at the throat, and I carried a great
bunch of white roses, and Father led John up the aisle after me.

I remember that Mother cried a good deal at the wedding, and told John
that he had stolen her darling and that he must never misuse me or beat
me. And I remember that the clergyman spoke very severely to John, and
told him he hoped he realized the responsibility he was taking and that
it was his duty to make me happy. A lot of our old friends were there,
and they all spoke quite sharply to John, and all the women kissed me
and said they hoped I would never regret what I had done, and I just
kept up my spirits by sheer determination, and told them that I had made
up my mind to be happy and that I was going to be so.

So presently it was all over and we were driven to the station and got
the afternoon train for New York, and when we sat down in the
compartment among all our bandboxes and flowers, John said, "Well, thank
God, that's over." And I said, "Oh, John, an oath! on our wedding day,
an oath!" John said, "I'm sorry, Minn, I didn't mean----" but I said,
"Don't, John, don't make it worse. Swear at me if you must, but don't
make it harder to bear."

* * * * *

We spent our honeymoon in New York. At first I had thought of going
somewhere to the great lonely woods, where I could have walked under the
great trees and felt the silence of nature, and where John should have
been my Viking and captured me with his spear, and where I should be
his and his alone and no other man should share me; and John had said
all right. Or else I had planned to go away somewhere to the seashore,
where I could have watched the great waves dashing themselves against
the rocks. I had told John that he should be my cave man, and should
seize me in his arms and carry me whither he would. I felt somehow that
for my development I wanted to get as close to nature as ever I
could--that my mind seemed to be reaching out for a great emptiness. But
I looked over all the hotel and steamship folders I could find and it
seemed impossible to get good accommodation, so we came to New York. I
had a great deal of shopping to do for our new house, so I could not be
much with John, but I felt it was not right to neglect him, so I drove
him somewhere in a taxi each morning and called for him again in the
evening. One day I took him to the Metropolitan Museum, and another day
I left him at the Zoo, and another day at the aquarium. John seemed very
happy and quiet among the fishes.

So presently we came back home, and I spent many busy days in fixing and
arranging our new house. I had the drawing-room done in blue, and the
dining-room all in dark panelled wood, and a boudoir upstairs done in
pink and white enamel to match my bedroom and dressing-room. There was a
very nice little room in the basement next to the coal cellar that I
turned into a "den" for John, so that when he wanted to smoke he could
go down there and do it. John seemed to appreciate his den at once, and
often would stay down there so long that I had to call to him to come
up.

When I look back on those days they seem very bright and happy. But it
was not very long before a change came. I began to realize that John was
neglecting me. I noticed it at first in small things. I don't know just
how long it was after our marriage that John began to read the newspaper
at breakfast. At first he would only pick it up and read it in little
bits, and only on the front page. I tried not to be hurt at it, and
would go on talking just as brightly as I could, without seeming to
notice anything. But presently he went on to reading the inside part of
the paper, and then one day he opened up the financial page and folded
the paper right back and leant it against the sugar-bowl.

I could not but wonder whether John's love for me was what it had been.
Was it cooling? I asked myself. And what was cooling it? It hardly
seemed possible, when I looked back to the wild passion with which he
had proposed to me on the garden bench, that John's love was waning. But
I kept noticing different little things. One day in the spring-time I
saw John getting out a lot of fishing tackle from a box and fitting it
together. I asked him what he was going to do, and he said that he was
going to fish. I went to my room and had a good cry. It seemed dreadful
that he could neglect his wife for a few worthless fish.

So I decided to put John to the test. It had been my habit every morning
after he put his coat on to go to the office to let John have one kiss,
just one weeny kiss, to keep him happy all day. So this day when he was
getting ready I bent my head over a big bowl of flowers and pretended
not to notice. I think John must have been hurt, as I heard him steal
out on tiptoe.

Well, I realized that things had come to a dreadful state, and so I sent
over to Mother, and Mother came, and we had a good cry together. I made
up my mind to force myself to face things and just to be as bright as
ever I could. Mother and I both thought that things would be better if I
tried all I could to make something out of John. I have always felt that
every woman should make all that she can out of her husband. So I did my
best first of all to straighten up John's appearance. I shifted the
style of collar he was wearing to a tighter kind that I liked better,
and I brushed his hair straight backward instead of forward, which gave
him a much more alert look. Mother said that John needed waking up, and
so we did all we could to wake him up. Mother came over to stay with me
a good deal, and in the evenings we generally had a little music or a
game of cards.

About this time another difficulty began to come into my married life,
which I suppose I ought to have foreseen--I mean the attentions of other
gentlemen. I have always called forth a great deal of admiration in
gentlemen, but I have always done my best to act like a lady and to
discourage it in every possible way. I had been innocent enough to
suppose that this would end with married life, and it gave me a dreadful
shock to realize that such was not the case. The first one I noticed was
a young man who came to the house, at an hour when John was out, for the
purpose, so he said at least, of reading the gas meter. He looked at me
in just the boldest way and asked me to show him the way to the cellar.
I don't know whether it was a pretext or not, but I just summoned all
the courage I had and showed him to the head of the cellar stairs. I had
determined that if he tried to carry me down with him I would scream for
the servants, but I suppose something in my manner made him desist, and
he went alone. When he came up he professed to have read the meter and
he left the house quite quietly. But I thought it wiser to say nothing
to John of what had happened.

There were others too. There was a young man with large brown eyes who
came and said he had been sent to tune the piano. He came on three
separate days, and he bent his ear over the keys in such a mournful way
that I knew he must have fallen in love with me. On the last day he
offered to tune my harp for a dollar extra, but I refused, and when I
asked him instead to tune Mother's mandoline he said he didn't know how.
Of course I told John nothing of all this.

Then there was Mr. McQueen, who came to the house several times to play
cribbage with John. He had been desperately in love with me years
before--at least I remember his taking me home from a hockey match once,
and what a struggle it was for him not to come into the parlour and see
Mother for a few minutes when I asked him; and, though he was married
now and with three children, I felt sure when he came to play cribbage
with John that it _meant_ something. He was very discreet and
honourable, and never betrayed himself for a moment, and I acted my
part as if there was nothing at all behind. But one night, when he came
over to play and John had had to go out, he refused to stay even for an
instant. He had got his overshoes off before I told him that John was
out, and asked him if he wouldn't come into the parlour and hear Mother
play the mandoline, but he just made one dive for his overshoes and was
gone. I knew that he didn't dare to trust himself.

Then presently a new trouble came. I began to suspect that John was
drinking. I don't mean for a moment that he was drunk, or that he was
openly cruel to me. But at times he seemed to act so queerly, and I
noticed that one night when by accident I left a bottle of raspberry
vinegar on the sideboard overnight, it was all gone in the morning. Two
or three times when McQueen and John were to play cribbage, John would
fetch home two or three bottles of bevo with him and they would sit
sipping all evening.

I think he was drinking bevo by himself, too, though I could never be
sure of it. At any rate he often seemed queer and restless in the
evenings, and instead of staying in his den he would wander all over the
house. Once we heard him--I mean Mother and I and two lady friends who
were with us that evening--quite late (after ten o'clock) apparently
moving about in the pantry. "John," I called, "is that you?" "Yes,
Minn," he answered, quietly enough, I admit. "What are you doing there?"
I asked. "Looking for something to eat," he said. "John," I said, "you
are forgetting what is due to me as your wife. You were fed at six. Go
back."

He went. But yet I felt more and more that his love must be dwindling to
make him act as he did. I thought it all over wearily enough and asked
myself whether I had done everything I should to hold my husband's love.
I had kept him in at nights. I had cut down his smoking. I had stopped
his playing cards. What more was there that I could do?

* * * * *

So at last the conviction came to me that I must go away. I felt that I
must get away somewhere and think things out. At first I thought of Palm
Beach, but the season had not opened and I felt somehow that I couldn't
wait. I wanted to get away somewhere by myself and just face things as
they were. So one morning I said to John, "John, I think I'd like to go
off somewhere for a little time, just to be by myself, dear, and I don't
want you to ask to come with me or to follow me, but just let me go."
John said, "All right, Minn. When are you going to start?" The cold
brutality of it cut me to the heart, and I went upstairs and had a good
cry and looked over steamship and railroad folders. I thought of Havana
for a while, because the pictures of the harbour and the castle and the
queer Spanish streets looked so attractive, but then I was afraid that
at Havana a woman alone by herself might be simply persecuted by
attentions from gentlemen. They say the Spanish temperament is something
fearful. So I decided on Bermuda instead. I felt that in a beautiful,
quiet place like Bermuda I could think everything all over and face
things, and it said on the folder that there were always at least two
English regiments in garrison there, and the English officers, whatever
their faults, always treat a woman with the deepest respect.

So I said nothing more to John, but in the next few days I got all my
arrangements made and my things packed. And when the last afternoon came
I sat down and wrote John a long letter, to leave on my boudoir table,
telling him that I had gone to Bermuda. I told him that I wanted to be
alone: I said that I couldn't tell when I would be back--that it might
be months, or it might be years, and I hoped that he would try to be as
happy as he could and forget me entirely, and to send me money on the
first of every month.

* * * * *

Well, it was just at that moment that one of those strange coincidences
happen, little things in themselves, but which seem to alter the whole
course of a person's life. I had nearly finished the letter to John that
I was to leave on the writing-desk, when just then the maid came up to
my room with a telegram. It was for John, but I thought it my duty to
open it and read it for him before I left. And I nearly fainted when I
saw that it was from a lawyer in Bermuda--of all places--and it said
that a legacy of two hundred thousand dollars had been left to John by
an uncle of his who had died there, and asking for instructions about
the disposition of it.

A great wave seemed to sweep over me, and all the wicked thoughts that
had been in my mind--for I saw now that they _were_ wicked--were driven
clean away. I thought how completely lost poor old John would feel if
all this money came to him and he didn't have to work any more and had
no one at his side to help and guide him in using it.

I tore up the wicked letter I had written, and I hurried as fast as I
could to pack up a valise with John's things (my own were packed
already, as I said). Then presently John came in, and I broke the news
to him as gently and as tenderly as I could about his uncle having left
him the money and having died. I told him that I had found out all
about the trains and the Bermuda steamer, and had everything all packed
and ready for us to leave at once. John seemed a little dazed about it
all, and kept saying that his uncle had taught him to play tennis when
he was a little boy, and he was very grateful and thankful to me for
having everything arranged, and thought it wonderful.

I had time to telephone to a few of my women friends, and they just
managed to rush round for a few minutes to say good-bye. I couldn't help
crying a little when I told them about John's uncle dying so far away
with none of us near him, and I told them about the legacy, and they
cried a little to hear of it all; and when I told them that John and I
might not come back direct from Bermuda, but might take a run over to
Europe first, they all cried some more.

We left for New York that evening, and after we had been to Bermuda and
arranged about a suitable monument for John's uncle and collected the
money, we sailed for Europe.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9