HOW TITA'S SOUL AT LAST IS STIRRED; AND HOW HER HAPPINESS IS
THREATENED AND HERSELF SET AT NAUGHT; AND HOW MINNIE HESCOTT SPEAKS.
"Such a day to go out on the lake!" says Mrs. Bethune, with a
contemptuous curve of her lip. "Really, that old woman must be as
mad as she is disagreeable."
"Well, she could hardly be _more_ so," says Mrs. Chichester.
They are all in the oriel chamber, the windows of which look upon
the lake, and now they can see Randall and Miss Gower rowing
apparently in the utmost peace across it.
"She has a perfect passion for boating," says Margaret.
"So I should say. I dare say it seems to her pretty and idyllic."
"Her passions ought to be at a low ebb by this time," says Mrs.
Bethune with a sneer. She has suffered many things at the old maid's
hands.
"Well, let us pray Randal will bring her home in safety," says Tita,
laughing.
"My _dear_ Lady Rylton!"
"Heavens--what a prayer!" exclaims Mrs. Chichester.
"Let us say it backwards," says captain Marryatt, which is
considered such a wonderful departure for him, such a stroke of wit
on his part, that everyone laughs in the most encouraging fashion.
"You'll be a reigning wit yet, if you don't look out," says Mrs.
Chichester.
"As you are a reigning toast," responds he, quite fired by the late
ovation.
"Oh, goodness!" says Mrs. Chichester, shrugging up her thin
shoulders and casting a queer glance round her from under her brows;
"let us take him away quickly, before he cuts himself with his own
smartness."
"Yes. Come down to the library, it's warmer there," says Tita. She
leads the way to the door, and when at it looks back over her
shoulder at her husband. "Are you coming, Maurice?"
"In a moment or two. I have a few letters to write first."
"And you?" says Tita, looking at Mrs. Bethune.
"I, too, have some letters to write," returns Marian.
Her tone is quite ordinary, but to the young girl gazing at her
there seems something defiant in her eyes and her smile. What is it
in the smile--a sort of hateful amusement.
Tita leaves the room. She goes out and down the spiral stairs quite
collectedly, to all appearance, yet she is not aware for a moment
that Margaret's hand is on her arm. For the first time--the first
time in all her young and most innocent life--a sin has touched her
soul. She has learned to hate--she as yet does not know why--but she
knows she hates Marian Bethune.
As the door closes behind her and her guests, Rylton turns on
Marian.
"Why did you say that? Why didn't you go?" says he.
His face is white as death. He cannot account to himself for the
agitation that is consuming him.
"Why should I not say what is the truth?" returns she, her beautiful
daring eyes full on his. "Why should I go? Does Lady Rylton demand
that all her guests should be at her beck and call, morning, noon,
and night?"
"She demands nothing," says Rylton.
The terrible truth of what he is saying goes home to him. What has
she ever demanded, that poor child, who has given him her fortune,
her life? Her little, sweet, half-pathetic face as she looked back
at him from the doorway is before him. Her face is often before him
now.
"She must be a fool, then," says Marian insolently. She takes a step
nearer to him. "Don't let us talk of her. What is she to us?" cries
she, in a low fierce tone that speaks of words held back for many
days, words that have been scorching her, and must find sound at
last. "Maurice! Maurice! how long is this to go on!" She takes a
step nearer to him, and then, as if it is impossible to her to hold
back any longer, she flings herself suddenly into his arms.
"Maurice, speak to me. My love! My life!" Her words are low,
dispirited, broken by little sobs.
Rylton presses her to him. It is an involuntary movement, the action
of one who would succour another when in trouble. His face has lost
all colour. He is indeed as white as death. He holds her. His arms
are round her--round this woman he has loved so long; it is--it must
be a supreme moment--and yet--
He lays his hands upon her arms, and putting her gently back from
him gazes into her drenched eyes. Those eyes so dear, so lustrous.
How often has he looked into them, when,
"Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again!"
"Marian," says he. His tone is tenderness itself, yet there is now a
sudden strength in it that astonishes him. _She_ had had all the
strength in those old days. She had dominated him, subduing him by
her beauty, her charm. The charm is there still--he knows that as he
gazes into her deep eyes, but is it quite as potent? A year ago
would she have been standing before him, looking at him as she is
looking now with this ineffable passion in her gaze whilst _he_
stood too? No. He would have been at her feet, her slave, her lover,
to do with as she would. "Marian, is this wise?"
"Ah! one moment!" entreats she sadly. "It is so seldom I can see you
alone, and this blessed chance--will you refuse it? You saw how I
dared everything. How I even risked her suspicion. It was because I
felt I _should_ see--_should_ speak with you again."
"You should consider yourself," says he in a dull tone.
He hardly understands himself. Where is the old, wild longing to be
with her, when others are away, to hold her in his arms? To kiss her
lips--dear willing lips?
"What do I care about myself?" returns she vehemently. Her passion
has so carried her with it, that she has failed to see the new
wonder in his air, the chill, the lack of warmth, the secret
questioning. "Ah, Maurice, forgive me! It is so like you to think of
me before yourself. And I know one _must_ think. But will it be
always so? Is there no chance, no hope--of freedom for you and me?
You are rich now, and if--if----"
"Don't," says he, in a choked tone.
He almost pushes her from him, but she clings to him.
"I know--I know," says she. "It is a dishonourable thought, but
thoughts will come. And you----" She catches him by both arms, and
swaying her little body a little, compels his gaze to meet hers.
"They come to you, too," cries she in a low tone, soft as velvet,
but quick with fervour. "You, too, long for freedom. Do I not know
you, Maurice? Do I not believe in you? You are mine--mine! Oh how I
honour you, for your honour to _her!_ I think you are the one good
man I ever met. If I loved you before your marriage, I love you a
thousand times better since. You are mine, and I am yours. And we
must wait--wait--but not for long. That girl----"
He releases himself from her by a quick, almost infuriated gesture.
At the very instant of his doing so the sound of footsteps coming
along the corridor without can be heard. Mrs. Bethune steps quickly
to a side-door, and passes noiselessly into a passage that leads her
to a back staircase. As she runs along it softly, noiselessly, a
great swell of delight lifts her bosom.
He loves her. He loves her still. He had not repulsed her when she
had flung herself into his embrace, and this last moment when he had
flung her out of it, _that_ spoke more than all. He had heard those
coming footsteps. He had thought of her--her reputation. That was
dear to him. She gains her own room by a circuitous round,
breathless, unseen, secure in her belief of her power over him. The
insatiable vanity of the woman had prevented her from reading
between the lines.
Rylton, detesting himself for the necessity for deception, has just
seated himself at a writing-table, when Minnie Hescott enters the
room. That astute young woman refrains from a glance round the room.
"Still writing?" says she.
She had told herself when she escaped from the others that she would
do a good turn to Tita. She decided upon not caring what Rylton
would think of her. Men were more easily appeased than women. She
would square him later on, even if her plain speaking offended him
now; and, at all events, Tita would be on her side--would
acknowledge she had meant kindly towards her, and even if all failed
still something would be gained. She would have "been even" with
Mrs. Bethune.
Miss Hescott's vocabulary is filled with choice sayings, expressive
if scarcely elegant. Beyond her dislike to Mrs. Bethune,
personally--she might have conquered that--Minnie is clever--there
is always the fact that Mrs. Bethune is poor, and poor people, as
Minnie has learned through a hard philosophy, are never of any use
at all. Mrs. Bethune, therefore, could never advance her one inch on
the road to social success; whereas Tita, though she is a mere
nobody in herself, and not of half as good birth as Mrs. Bethune,
can be of the utmost use as a propeller.
Tita, by happy circumstances, is the wife of a real live Baronet,
and Tita is her cousin. Tita has money, and is very likely to go to
town every year in the season, and what more likely than that Tita
should take her (Minnie) under her wing next season, present her and
marry her? Delightful prospect. Her step is quite buoyant as she
approaches Rylton and says:
"Still writing?"
"Yes," returns Rylton leisurely, to whom Minnie is not dear.
"I'm sorry. I wanted to say something to you," says Minnie, who has
decided on adopting the unadorned style of conversation, that
belongs as a rule to the young--the unsophisticated.
"If I can be of the slightest use to you," says Rylton, wheeling
round on his chair, "I shall be delighted." He had knocked off the
blotting paper as he turned, and now stoops to pick it up, a moment
that Minnie takes to see that he has no letter half begun before
him, and no letter finished either, as the rack on the side of the
wall testifies. Minnie would have done well as a female detective!
"Oh no--no. On the contrary, I wanted to be of use to you."
"To me?"
"Yes. You mustn't be angry with me," says Minnie, still with the air
of the _ingénue_ full about her; "but I felt ever since the night
before last that I _should_ speak to you."
"The night before last!"
Rylton's astonishment is so immense that he can do nothing but
repeat her words. And now it must be told that Minnie, who had seen
that vindictive look on Mrs. Bethune's face as she went down the
terrace steps on the night of Lady Warbeck's dance, and had augured
ill from it for Tita and her brother, had cross-examined Tom very
cleverly, and had elicited from him the fact that he had heard
footsteps behind the arbour where he and somebody--he refused to
give the name--had sat that night, and that he--Tom--had glanced
round, and had seen and known, but that he had said nothing of it to
his companion. A mutual hatred for Mrs. Bethune, born in the breast
of Tom as well as in his sister, had alone compelled Tom to declare
even this much. Minnie had probed and probed about his companion, as
to who she was, but Tom would not speak. Yet he might as well have
spoken. Minnie knew!
"Yes, that night at Lady Warbeck's. I know you will think me horrid
to say what I am going to say, and really there is nothing--only--I
am so fond of Tita."
"It is not horrid of you to say that," says Rylton, smiling.
"No. I know that. But that isn't all. I--am afraid Tita has an enemy
in this house."
"Impossible," says Rylton.
He rises, smiling always, but as if to put a termination to the
interview.
"No, but listen," says Minnie, who, now she has entered upon her
plan, would be difficult to beat. "Do you remember when you and Mrs.
Bethune were standing on the balcony at Warbeck Towers--that night?"
Rylton starts, but in a second collects himself.
"Yes," returns he calmly.
He feels it would be madness to deny it.
"Very well," says Minnie, "I was there too, and I went down the
steps--to the garden. Your wife went down before me."
Rylton grows suddenly interested. He had seen Minnie go down those
steps--but the other!
"Then?" asks he; his tone is breathless.
"Oh, yes--just then," says Minnie, "and that is what I wanted to
talk to you about. You and Mrs. Bethune were on the balcony above,
and Tita passed just beneath, and I saw Mrs. Bethune lean over for a
_second_ as it were--it seemed to me a most evil second, and she saw
Tita--and her eyes!" Minnie pauses. "Her eyes were awful! I felt
frightened for Tita."
"You mean to tell me that Mrs. Bethune _saw_ Tita that night passing
beneath the balcony?"
The memory of his bet with Marian, that strange bet, so strangely
begun, comes back to him--and other things too! He loses himself a
little. Once again he is back on that balcony; the lights are low,
the stars are over his head. Marian is whispering to him, and all at
once she grows silent. He remembers it; she takes a step forward. He
remembers that too--a step as though she would have checked
something, and then thought better of it.
Is this girl speaking the truth? _Had_ Marian seen and then made her
bet, and then deliberately drawn him step by step to that accursed
arbour? And all so quietly--so secretly--without a thought of pity,
of remorse!
No, it is not true! This girl is false---- And yet--that quick step
Marian had taken; it had somehow, in some queer way, planted itself
upon his memory.
Had she seen Tita go by with Hescott? She had called it a fair bet!
Was it fair? Was there any truth anywhere? If she had seen them--if
she had deliberately led him to spy upon them----
A very rage of anger swells up within his heart, and with it a first
doubt--a first suspicion of the honour of her on whom he had set his
soul! Perhaps the ground was ready for the sowing.
"Saw her? Yes, indeed," says Minnie, still with the air of childish
candour. "It was _because_ I saw her that I was so frightened about
Tita. Do you know, Sir Maurice,"--most ingenuously this--"I don't
think Mrs. Bethune likes Tita."
"Why should you suppose such a thing?" says Rylton. His face is dark
and lowering. "Tita seems to me to be a person impossible to
dislike."
"Ah, that is what I think," says Minnie. "And it made me the more
surprised that Mrs. Bethune should look at her so unkindly. Well,"
smiling very naturally and pleasantly, "I suppose there is nothing
in it. It was only my love for Tita that made me come and tell you
what was troubling me."
"Why not tell Tita?"
"Ah, Tita is a little angel," says Minnie Hescott. "I might as well
speak to the winds as to her. I tried to tell her, you know,
and----"
"And----"
He looked up eagerly.
"And she wouldn't listen. I tell you she is an angel," says Minnie,
laughing. She stops. "I suppose it is all nonsense--all my own
folly; but I am so fond of Tita, that I felt terrified when I saw
Mrs. Bethune look so unkindly at her on the balcony."
"You are sure you were not dreaming?" says Rylton, making an effort,
and growing careless once again in his manner.
Minnie Hescott smiles too.
"I never dream," says she.