AN EXPLANATION
Mrs. Ramsay’s trip to the Sunny South was accounted for by the fact
that she had recently come into possession of a comfortable fortune,
left to her by her godfather “in recognition and admiration,” said the
will, “of the noble way in which Kathleen Ramsay had carried out her
marriage vow--for better or worse.”
The widow had gladly accepted an invitation, and joined the Morven
party. She was extremely fond of Aurea, the girl’s sunny nature and
light-heartedness was a grateful tonic for her own sad frame of mind;
but she now felt deeply indignant with her friend for her treatment
of Mr. Wynyard, and could not have believed her capable of such
snobbishness, had she not witnessed it with her own eyes. She had
noticed his hurried address, Aurea’s quick reply, and then his face.
_What_ had the girl said, to thus turn him into stone? Personally, she
liked Owen immensely! was deeply in his debt, and ready to forward
his happiness and his interests to the best of her ability. Kathleen
Ramsay, a woman of warm feelings and responsive susceptibilities, would
have been delighted to promote a love-match between Owen Wynyard and
Aurea Morven.
Aurea’s unexpected attitude had filled her with amazement and rage; she
could hardly restrain herself, but managed to hold her peace--and that
with pain and grief--for four whole days; at the end of the time, she
received a letter from Aurea’s lover, which caused her restraint to
break all bonds:--
“DEAR MRS. RAMSAY,--I find it will be impossible for me to go over
and see you, as we are leaving for Milan to-morrow. I should have
liked to have had a long talk with you--you and I have few secrets
from one another--but, as the Rector and Miss Morven are in your
hotel, I could not have faced them again, and given Miss Morven
the trouble of cutting me for a second time. You suspected me, I
know, and I may tell you that it was Aurea Morven who kept me in
Ottinge for six months; that, chiefly for her sake, I took on a
detestable job in Town, and engaged to risk my neck with this crazy
motorist; for every week that I was earning my bread and keeping
my promise, was bringing me, I believed, nearer to _her_. To the
best of my knowledge I have never given her any reason to think
ill of me; on the contrary, I have striven tremendously hard to
make myself more worthy of her, and the other day, when I met her
accidentally, I thought it was a wonderful piece of good luck for
me; instead of which, it was the blackest day I’ve ever known. She
refused to remember or recognise me. I have only six months more to
work off--sometimes I think I’ll chuck the whole thing and enlist; I
would, only for my sister. What’s the good of trying? I’m afraid this
is a beastly sort of letter, but....”
Some words were scratched out, but read, very carefully, and held up to
the light, they were faintly decipherable.
“I sometimes feel as if I were going mad--I don’t care now if we have
some bad accident. I only hope it will kill me.--Yours sincerely,
“OWEN WYNYARD.”
It was the Honourable Mrs. Ramsay, daughter of the late, and sister of
the present, Viscount Ballingarry--and not Katie--who, that evening,
entered Aurea’s bedroom immediately after a knock. She discovered her
young victim in a charming white _negligé_ and a rose silk petticoat,
engaged in brushing her magnificent hair. There was war in the
visitor’s face as she seated herself, and, after a moment’s expressive
silence, fired her first gun.
“Aurea, I want you to tell me why you were so amazingly, so cruelly,
rude to Owen, your aunts’ chauffeur?”
Miss Aurea, after a glance at her friend, coolly replied--
“Why should _I_ be called upon to do the polite to my aunts’
_ci-devant_ employé?”
“Aurea! This is not you--there must be some crooked turn in you, or
there’s some other detestable girl in your body!”
“It is Aurea Morven, I assure you,” and she drew herself together with
a quick movement; “and I do not wish to hear anything of Owen, the
chauffeur. _I_ know more about him than you suppose.”
“You don’t know a quarter as much as I do!” retorted Mrs. Ramsay with
decision, and her eyes gleamed.
“I know that he was on a ranch in South America, that he was a waiter
on the _Anaconda_----”
“Oh yes, go on.”
“That he was probably in the Army, that he is in disgrace with his
family, and came to hide himself in Ottinge till the storm, whatever
it was, blew over! and that a tall dark lady came to meet him at
Brodfield, and even at the Drum.”
“How do you know?” inquired Mrs. Ramsay.
“I saw her--I saw him kissing a woman at the Drum as I passed; all
Ottinge might have done the same! Their shadows were on the blind.
I saw him and the woman drive away; they passed me in a motor, he,
leaning back delightfully at his ease, and she bending over him as if
she adored him! And this is not second-hand news, for I witnessed it
myself.”
“Why should you be so furious, Aurea? Aurea, _I_ know why!” and her
tone was vibrating and sarcastic.
The girl turned upon her with flashing eyes; but, before she could
speak, Mrs. Ramsay said--
“You say your news is first-hand--so is mine; I promised to keep Mr.
Wynyard’s secret.”
“Oh yes, I knew his name was Wynyard,” interrupted Aurea.
“Of course--my poor old man uttered it with his last breath. He was
fond of Owen; he mistook him for his friend and schoolfellow--Owen’s
father--and Owen allowed him to think so. I pledged myself to silence,
but even _he_ would permit me to break it now. The lady who came to
see Owen, and who has so excited your wrath, was”--speaking very
deliberately--“his sister, Lady Kesters.”
Aurea’s tortoiseshell brush fell to the floor with a resounding clang.
Then, in a very few words, Mrs. Ramsay--impulsive, eloquent, and
Irish--laid the whole story of Sir Richard’s bargain before the girl,
who stood listening as if in a dream.
“Mr. Wynyard was so good to my poor husband, and, indeed, to me, I’ll
never, never forget it. And, you see, Jimmy knew his father and mother,
whom he could not remember, and one night in the dusk, just before I
left, he told me his whole story. Of course I had always known he was
the son of Captain Wynyard, and that he himself had been in the Red
Hussars, but I did _not_ know why he was earning his bread as your
aunts’ chauffeur! He never said a word of you, but I understood--I
realised the attraction that kept him, a young man of the world, in
out-of-the-way Ottinge. He opened his heart to me that August night,
and now, Aurea, you have broken it.”
“I?”
“Don’t pretend,” she cried passionately, and she looked at her almost
threateningly; “don’t add to your sins. _You_ know as well as I do how
you treated him--certainly not as a lady should do; why, if I were
to meet one of the Brodfield fly-drivers here I’d give him a civil
greeting. You were outrageously rude--you overdid it. My only comfort
is that, to be so jealous, you must have been extremely fond of him.”
Aurea coloured--she could blush furiously--and her complexion was very
pink indeed, as seen through long strands of hair.
Then she sat down rather suddenly, and said--
“What’s done is done--and never can be undone!” and buried her face in
her hands.
Whereupon the Honourable Mrs. Ramsay, having said her say, and “rubbed
it in” remorselessly, quietly effected her departure.