_Sunday evening, November 27th._
I have a great deal to write--and yet it is only a few hours since I
shut up this book, and replaced the key on my bracelet.
By a quarter past three I was making my way through Grosvenor Square.
Everything was misty and blurred, but not actually a thick fog, or
any chance of being lost. By the time I got into the Park it had
lifted a little. It seemed close and warm, and as I went on I got more
depressed. I have never been out alone before; that in itself seemed
strange, and ought to have amused me.
The image of Christopher kept floating in front of me, his face seemed
to have the expression of a satyr. Well, at all events, he would never
be able to break my heart like “Alicia Verney’s”--nothing could ever
make me care for him. I tried to think of all the good I was going to
get out of the affair, and how really fond I am of Branches.
I walked very fast, people loomed at me, and then disappeared in the
mist. It was getting almost dusk, and suddenly I felt tired, and sat
down on a bench.
I had wandered into a side path where there were no chairs. On the
bench before mine I I saw, as I passed, a tramp huddled up. I wondered
what his thoughts were, and if he felt any more miserable than I did. I
daresay I was crouching in a depressed position too.
Not many people went by, and every moment it grew darker. In all my
life, even on the days when Mrs. Carruthers taunted me about mamma
being nobody, I have never felt so wretched. Tears kept rising in
my eyes, and I did not even worry to blink them away. Who would see
me--and who in the world would care if they did see.
Suddenly I was conscious that a very perfect figure was coming out of
the mist towards me, but not until he was close to me, and stopping
with a start peered into my face, did I recognize it was Lord Robert.
“Evangeline!” he exclaimed, in a voice of consternation. “I--what, oh,
what is the matter?”
No wonder he was surprised. Why he had not taken me for some tramp too,
and passed on, I don’t know.
“Nothing,” I said, as well as I could, and tried to tilt my hat over my
eyes. I had no veil on unfortunately.
“I have just been for a walk. Why do you call me Evangeline, and why
are you not in Northumberland?”
He looked so tall and beautiful, and his face had no expression of
contempt or anger now, only distress and sympathy.
“I was suddenly put on guard yesterday, and could not get leave,” he
said, not answering the first part. “But, oh, I can’t bear to see you
sitting here alone, and looking so, so miserable. Mayn’t I take you
home? You will catch cold in the damp.”
“Oh no, not yet. I won’t go back yet!” I said, hardly realizing what
I was saying. He sat down beside me, and slipped his hand into my
muff, pressing my clasped fingers--the gentlest, friendliest caress,
a child might have made in sympathy. It touched some foolish chord in
my nature, some want of self-control inherited from mamma’s ordinary
mother, I suppose, anyway the tears poured down my face--I could not
help it. Oh, the shame of it! to sit crying in the Park, in front of
Lord Robert, of all people in the world, too!
“Dear, dear little girl,” he said. “Tell me about it,” and he held my
hand in my muff with his strong warm hand.
“I--I have nothing to tell,” I said, choking down a sob. “I am ashamed
for you to see me like this, only--I am feeling so very miserable.”
“Dear child,” he said. “Well, you are not to be--I won’t have it. Has
some one been unkind to you--tell me, tell me,” his voice was trembling
with distress.
“It’s--it’s nothing,” I mumbled.
I dared not look at him, I knew his eyebrows would be up in that way
that attracts me so dreadfully.
“Listen,” he whispered almost, and bent over me. “I want you to be
friends with me so that I can help you. I want you to go back to the
time we packed your books together. God knows what has come between
us since--it is not of my doing--but I want to take care of you, dear
little girl to-day. It--oh, it hurts me so to see you crying here.”
“I--would like to be friends,” I said. “I never wanted to be anything
else, but I could not help it--and I can’t now.”
“Won’t you tell me the reason?” he pleaded. “You have made me so
dreadfully unhappy about it. I thought all sorts of things. You know I
am a jealous beast.”
There can’t in the world be another voice as engaging as Lord Robert’s,
and he has a trick of pronouncing words that is too attractive, and
the way his mouth goes when he is speaking, showing his perfectly
chiselled lips under the little moustache! There is no use pretending!
I was sitting there on the bench going through thrills of emotion, and
longing for him to take me in his arms. It is too frightful to think
of! I must be bad after all.
“Now you are going to tell me everything about it,” he commanded. “To
begin with, what made you suddenly change at Tryland after the first
afternoon, and then what is it that makes you so unhappy now?”
“I can’t tell you either,” I said very low. I hoped the common
grandmother would not take me as far as doing mean tricks to Lady Ver!
“Oh, you have made me wild!” he exclaimed, letting go my hand, and
leaning both elbows on his knees, while he pushed his hat to the back
of his head. “Perfectly mad with fury and jealousy. That brute Malcolm!
and then looking at Campion at dinner, and worst of all, Christopher in
the box at ‘Carmen!’ Wicked, naughty little thing! And yet underneath
I have a feeling it is for some absurd reason, and not for sheer
devilment. If I thought that, I would soon get not to care. I did think
it at ‘Carmen.’”
“Yes, I know,” I said.
“You know what?” he looked up, startled; then he took my hand again,
and sat close to me.
“Oh, please, please don’t, Lord Robert!” I said.
It really made me quiver so with the loveliest feeling I have ever
known, that I knew I should never be able to keep my head if he went on.
“Please, please, don’t hold my hand,” I said. “It--it makes me not able
to behave nicely.”
“Darling,” he whispered, “then it shows that you like me, and I sha’n’t
let go until you tell me every little bit.”
“Oh, I can’t, I can’t!” I felt too tortured, and yet waves of joy were
rushing over me. That _is_ a word, “darling,” for giving feelings down
the back!
“Evangeline,” he said, quite sternly, “will you answer this question
then--do you like me, or do you hate me? Because, as you must know very
well, I love you.”
Oh, the wild joy of hearing him say that! What in the world did
anything else matter! For a moment there was a singing in my ears, and
I forgot everything but our two selves. Then the picture of Christopher
waiting for me, with his cold, cynic’s face and eyes blazing with
passion, rushed into my vision, and the Duke’s critical, suspicious,
disapproving scrutiny, and I felt as if a cry of pain, like a wounded
animal, escaped me.
“Darling, darling, what is it? Did I hurt your dear little hand?” Lord
Robert exclaimed tenderly.
“No,” I whispered, brokenly; “but I cannot listen to you. I am going
back to Claridge’s now, and I am going to marry Mr. Carruthers.”
He dropped my hand as if it stung him.
“Good God! Then it is true,” was all he said.
In fear I glanced at him--his face looked gray in the quickly gathering
mist.
“Oh, Robert!” I said in anguish, unable to help myself. “It isn’t
because I want to. I--I--oh! probably I love you--but I must, there is
nothing else to be done.”
“Isn’t there!” he said, all the life and joy coming back to his face.
“Do you think I will let Christopher, or any other man in the world,
have you now you have confessed that!!” and fortunately there was no
one in sight--because he put his arms round my neck, and drew me close,
and kissed my lips.
Oh, what nonsense people talk of heaven! sitting on clouds and singing
psalms and things like that! There can’t be any heaven half so lovely
as being kissed by Robert--I felt quite giddy with happiness for
several exquisite seconds, then I woke up. It was all absolutely
impossible, I knew, and I must keep my head.
“Now you belong to me,” he said, letting his arm slip down to my waist;
“so you must begin at the beginning, and tell me everything.”
“No, no,” I said, struggling feebly to free myself, and feeling so glad
he held me tight! “It is impossible all the same, and that only makes
it harder. Christopher is coming to see me at four, and I promised Lady
Ver I would not be a fool, and would marry him.”
“A fig for Lady Ver,” he said, calmly, “if that is all; you leave her
to me--she never argues with me!”
“It is not only that--I--I promised I would never play with you----”
“And you certainly never shall,” he said, and I could see a look in his
eye as he purposely misconstrued my words, and then he deliberately
kissed me again. Oh! I like it better than anything else in the world!
How could any one keep their head with Robert quite close, making love
like that?
“You certainly never--never--shall,” he said again, with a kiss between
each word. “I will take care of that! Your time of playing with people
is over, Mademoiselle! When you are married to me, I shall fight with
any one who dares to look at you!”
“But I shall never be married to you, Robert,” I said, though, as
I could only be happy for such a few moments, I did not think it
necessary to move away out of his arms. How thankful I was to the fog!
and no one passing! I shall always adore fogs.
“Yes, you will,” he announced, with perfect certainty; “in about
a fortnight, I should think. I can’t and won’t have you staying at
Claridge’s by yourself. I shall take you back this afternoon to Aunt
Sophia. Only all that we can settle presently. Now, for the moment, I
want you to tell me you love me, and that you are sorry for being such
a little brute all this time.”
“I did not know it until just now--but I think--I probably do love
you--Robert!” I said.
He was holding my hand in my muff again, the other arm round my waist.
Absolutely disgraceful behaviour in the Park; we might have been Susan
Jane and Thomas Augustus, and yet I was perfectly happy, and felt it
was the only natural way to sit.
A figure appeared in the distance--we started apart.
“Oh! really, really,” I gasped, “we--you--must be different.”
He leant back and laughed.
“You sweet darling! Well, come, we will go for a drive in a hansom--we
will choose one without a light inside. Albert Gate is quite close,
come!” and he rose, and taking my arm, not offering his to me, like in
books, he drew me on down the path.
I am sure any one would be terribly shocked to read what I have
written, but not so much if they knew Robert, and how utterly adorable
he is. And how masterful, and simple, and direct! He does not split
straws, or bandy words. I had made the admission that I loved him, and
that was enough to go upon!
As we walked alone I tried to tell him it was impossible, that I
must go back to Christopher, that Lady Ver would think I had broken
my word about it. I did not, of course, tell him of her bargain with
me over him, but he probably guessed that, because before we got
into the hansom even, he had begun to put me through a searching
cross-examination as to the reasons for my behaviour at Tryland, and
Park Street, and the Opera. I felt like a child with a strong man, and
every moment more idiotically happy, and in love with him.
He told the cabman to drive to Hammersmith, and then put his arm round
my waist again, and held my hand, pulling my glove off backwards first.
It is a great big granny muff of sable I have, Mrs. Carruthers’ present
on my last birthday. I never thought then to what charming use it would
be put!
“Now I think we have demolished all your silly little reasons for
making me miserable,” he said. “What others have you to bring forward
as to why you can’t marry me in a fortnight?”