CHAPTER IV.
NITA’S DIARY.
In her room at the same hour sat Nita Bolton: the door locked, the lamp lighted. She was attired in a flowing dressing-gown, her hair falling in two long, thick plaits over her shoulders. Nita had beautiful hair—beautiful, that is, in quality, if not remarkable in colour. It was of a dull, soft brown, without the suspicion of a tawny hue in it, or of a glint of gold, but it was slightly wavy, fine, soft, and abundant, and she had a harmless pride and pleasure in it.
She was seated just now at a very elegant-looking writing-table, an article of furniture which had so far been also distinctly an article of luxury, for Nita’s letters were very, very few. It was not a letter with which she was this night engaged. No! Open before her was a substantially-bound volume, with a Chubb’s lock, and a little key to open and close the same—a precaution which lost some of its value when one considers how easy it would have been for an evil-disposed person to carry off the book, lock and all, if he wished to pry into the sacred contents thereof. In this precious volume Miss Bolton was in the habit of inscribing her day’s adventures, or no-adventures, and her own valuable comments and reflections thereupon, together with dark and gloomy musings upon the sorrows and misfortunes of this present life; the strange and inexplicable arrangements of Destiny (with a capital D), and a chronicle of her mental experiences in general. Many pages of such lucubrations filled the earlier portion of the volume.
To-night Anita’s pen had not run with its accustomed rapidity over the page. She had recorded how ‘John returned from London yesterday morning, and came in in the evening and brought me some novels, because he said he knew I cared for nothing else, which was mean of the dear old fellow.’ How ‘Aunt Margery came to dinner, and sat with me all afternoon, and was very amusing. What a clever old thing she is!’ How, ‘about six o’clock, I heard papa’s voice, and looked up, wondering what had dragged him away from his beloved Dante, at that hour, and I saw him coming along with a gentleman, a stranger, the very handsomest man I ever saw.’ Then followed a minute description of the introduction, of every word that Jerome had said, that Aunt Margery and papa had said, that ‘I’ had said, and in addition, what ‘I’ thought on the subject: To her diary Nita might betray, and did betray what she would conceal from all others, the fact that from the moment in which she had looked up and met Jerome’s eyes, she had been fascinated, spell-bound, possessed with the thought of him.
Much unpublished as well as published rubbish is written every year, and Nita Bolton’s journal was not an exception to the rule that most young ladies’ journals are not worth the time that is spent upon them. Her cousin John having discovered once by accident that Nita kept a journal, had ever since oppressed her at intervals with cruel remarks upon it, questions as to what she had written about, insinuating inquiries, ‘Did you mention how agreeable I made myself the other night?’ and so on.
Mr. Bolton had laughed a little when he heard about it, and had said:
‘She’s dull. Girls must have some outlet for their feelings. It’s better to sentimentalise in a diary than with a curate. I’d rather she sat up late scribbling, than rose at cockcrow to get cold at “early celebrations,” and all that rubbish—eh, Jack?’
To which ‘Jack’ always and devoutly yielded his assent.
Nita, on this particular occasion, had more and darker reflections to make than usual, upon the dark and tortuous ways of ‘Destiny.’ Such effusions might be the result of a mere surface feeling, or they might be the indications of some deeper, more tragic emotion. Who was to say? Nita herself less than anyone.
‘I never,’ she wrote, ‘never before saw, or imagined anyone in the least like him. It was like seeing a new kind of creature.’
Then there was a long pause, as she laid her pen down, folded her hands, and pondered. Then she took up her pen again and wrote:
‘He may well look sad and melancholy, and gaze sorrowfully on the scene around him. He may well look long and gravely at me when he speaks to me. Only quite a short time ago, he supposed himself the heir to all this place, and now he is dispossessed, and it is I who shall sometime have it! What romances there are in the world, far wilder romances than one reads of in books. How will it all end? What hand has brought us together in this strange manner—I and he, of all persons in the world? This is indeed one of those dark mazes of life through which one must wander on trust—one can know nothing.’
Having written thus far, Nita carefully read over the chronicle, closed and locked the book, and put it away. Then, starting with a sudden movement, she ran to the window, opened it and leaned out, looking forth upon the moonlight. To a romantic mind and one given to sentimental musings, Wellfield Abbey must have been provocative of much moon-gazing and many reveries. Nita Bolton was romantic, was sentimental, in no small degree, though these qualities had been well kept in check by the healthy and natural though quiet life which she had lived, and by the perpetual shafts of satire directed against all sentiment by her three associates—her father, her Aunt Margery, and her cousin, John Leyburn. But the tendency to weaving romance out of her surroundings, if they would by any means allow it, was there, powerful, though dormant. The fire smouldered. It needed but a spark to kindle it. The sudden appearance of Jerome Wellfield supplied that spark. Nita’s innate love of sentiment and romance was aroused. It appeared as if life suddenly contained a new, fresh interest. It was long before the girl undressed, and then it was long before she slept. At last slumber came, and dreams in which Wellfield had no part.