"ANTHONY MUST KNOW."
"And you liked her, Kitty?" said Anthony Trevithick.
It was the morning after his return, and Lady Jane had left them
alone.
"I liked her amazingly," said Lady Kitty; "and, what is more
surprising, she liked me."
"It would be surprising if she didn't, Kitty"--looking at her with
brotherly fondness. "Do you know, Kitty, I used to like you because
you were pretty, and couldn't help being charming?"
Lady Kitty made a mocking bow.
"But still there is some change in you of late. What is it? You have
given up being smart and cynical and all that. You are ever so much
lovelier now than I remember you."
Lady Kitty laughed, but her eyes softened.
"I'm glad you think I'm lovelier, Anthony."
He looked at her sharply.
"What is it, Kitty?"
"Something that must not be told yet, Anthony."
"Oh, it is _that_!"
His voice had an incredulous relief in it.
"It is really _that_, Kitty?"
Lady Kitty laughed up at him out of her chair, and her glance was at
once shy and proud.
"Yes, it is that, Anthony."
"Do I know him, Kitty?"
"Very well, Anthony. But no one knows yet--only he and I."
"Who, Kitty?"
"Ask Mr. Leslie, Anthony."
"It isn't Jack, Kitty? You don't mean to say it is Jack! Why--you
deceitful little person!--Jack was just the one man you never tried
to make captive to your bow and spear; at least, so far as I could
see."
"My poor Anthony, you never saw very far where I was concerned."
"No, then, Kitty, I didn't."
His face was a little rueful as he said it.
"But I am glad beyond measure," he went on. "There is, perhaps, only
one thing could make me happier."
He stooped and touched Lady Kitty's soft cheek with his lips.
"You can tell Jack, Kitty," he said. "We are like sister and
brother, aren't we?"
"I am very fond of you, Anthony. Next to your mother--excluding
Jack, of course--I think I'm as fond of you as anyone."
"I'm glad you're fond of my mother, Kitty. She doesn't care for many
people."
"I've been trying to get up courage to tell her, Anthony. I hate to
keep her in the dark."
"It will be a blow to her, Kitty."
They both laughed and blushed a little consciously.
"Yes, I'm afraid it will."
"But Pamela, Kitty--tell me about Pamela. Did she ever talk about
me?"
"I can't say that she did, Anthony."
"I suppose she wouldn't," said the lover, a little disappointed,
nevertheless.
"You're fond of her, Anthony?" said Lady Kitty, looking up at him
with eyes of alarm. "Really fond of her?"
"I love her and she loves me. As soon as I have established Uncle
Wilton comfortably with Knowles to look after him, I shall go to
claim her."
"She _knows_ you love her, Anthony?"
"Oh, yes, she knows."
The young fellow laughed happily, and there was no shadow of doubt
or of apprehension in his eyes. He had begun to walk up and down the
room now, impatiently, as if he wanted to be off.
"Why didn't you claim her before you went off to nurse your uncle,
Anthony? Uncertainty of that kind is hard on a girl."
"I did write. Not, indeed, to her, but to her father, and gave him a
broad hint of the state of the case. I have often wondered he never
sent me a word: he was such a good sort."
"He has been very ill, Anthony."
"Ill? My mother never told me."
"He was at death's door, but is out of danger; he must be getting
strong again by this time."
"My poor little Pam--and all of them! They adore their father, and
they had no one to help or comfort them!"
"Why didn't you write to Pamela herself?"
"My mother asked me not to till I came back. But now all that is
over. I am going to her at once."
"You say you wrote to her father, Anthony? Do you know I have a kind
of idea she said you had not written?"
"I wrote, Kitty, all right, and put it in the letter-box in the hall
the night before I left. You must have mistaken what she said. Of
course, her father's illness explains his not having written. And
now there is no use in writing. I can be there almost as soon as a
letter."
Lady Kitty's face was troubled as she looked at him.
"You're quite sure you posted the letter, Anthony? Perhaps they
didn't get it. Letters sometimes go wrong, don't they?"
"Not one out of a million. What are you thinking of, Kitty?"
Lady Kitty jumped up out of her chair and went to him.
"My poor old Anthony," she said, "there's something horribly wrong.
I wish I hadn't to tell you. Pamela's engaged to a Lord Glengall."
[Illustration: "My poor old Anthony, there's something horribly
wrong."]
Trevithick looked at her as if he could not take in what he heard.
"You are mad, Kitty," he said slowly. "She is engaged to me."
"I have her word for it, Anthony. There is something wrong, I am
sure. She has just written it to me."
"Show me the letter, Kitty."
She went to an escritoire in the corner of the room, found the
letter, and brought it to him. He read it with staring eyes.
"She won't marry him," he said when he had finished.
"My poor Anthony!"
"An engagement is nothing. She was engaged to me. She let me kiss
her. He is a man with money--I remember now. Do women sell their
souls for money, Kitty?"
"Some women might, Anthony, but I don't think Pamela would. There is
something wrong, Anthony, I am sure of it."
"I am going to find out, Kitty."
[Illustration: Something in the attitude smote her.--_p. 446._]
He turned his angry, miserable young face upon her, and her heart
was wrung for him.
"I am going over there to-night, Kitty."
"You will do nothing rash, Anthony?"
"If I find that anything but her own will has come between us, I
will do my best to win her back from him. I have the right, Kitty. I
was the first, and she let me kiss her."
"You say she was engaged to you, Anthony? Do you mean formally?"
"Everything _but_ formally. Ah! I wish I had settled it then--put a
ring on her before them all. It was my mother. She made me promise
to do nothing till I came back."
"Oh! she knew, then?"
"I told her, Kitty, and she was bitterly angry. And I, mad that I
was, I yielded to her will. Afterwards, when I heard she had found
them out, and got Pam over here, I thought her heart had softened
to me after all those years, and that she was helping me towards my
happiness."
"Why did she make you promise that?"
"I am ashamed to say it, Kitty--because she persuaded me you cared
for me, and ought not to be told suddenly. I beg your pardon, Kitty;
I was not ass enough to think it of myself!"
"Ah!" said Lady Kitty again, and her eyes were thoughtful, "and poor
little Pam was miserable. I don't believe they ever had that letter,
Anthony."
"If she was miserable for me"--and the lover's face lightened--"she
loves me still, and she must give up the other man for me. If she
loves me, he has no right to her. I am going to find out, Kitty."
"Where are you going now, Anthony?"
"There are twenty things to be done. I have to see Uncle Wilton and
tell him I am going. Knowles understands what to do for him, and to
call Dr. Berners if he were ill."
He took up her hand and kissed it.
"You've been a good little girl to me, Kitty," he said. "Afterwards
I am going to fight for my love."
As the door closed behind him Lady Kitty went thoughtfully upstairs
and knocked at Lady Jane's boudoir door.
"May I come in, Auntie Jane?" she said; "are you very busy?"
Lady Jane looked up from her books with an air of expectation, as
if there might be something pleasant to hear; but her expression
changed immediately.
"What is the matter, Kitty?" she asked.
"A good deal. Anthony has been telling me that he is in love with
Pamela Graydon."
"My darling----"
Kitty lifted her hand.
"It only affects me in so far as it affects Anthony. Pamela is
engaged to Lord Glengall."'
"I remember him. I saw him when I was there. He looked like a
ploughman, and I thought he was one. I suppose she marries him for
the title."
"She marries him--if she does--because she is in love with Anthony,
and thinks he has played her false."
"You are too romantic, Kitty."
"It is the first time I have been called so. Forgive me for
something I must ask you. Are you at the root of the mischief?"
"What do you mean, Kitty?"
"I begin to have a glimmering of why you brought her here."
"Kitty, tell me first. Do you not mind at all about Anthony?"
"Not in the way you mean. He never cared for me, not in that way. It
is no use trying to bring these things about."
"It has been my dream, Kitty, since you were quite a little girl.
I never loved Anthony; but if you were his wife, I think I should
begin to love him. I thought you cared for him always."
"I should not have let you think that. Some of all this trouble is
my fault. It is better to be open all the way through. I kept it
from you because I feared the sharp disappointment it would be to
you."
"That you did not love Anthony?"
"More than that, Auntie Janie, I loved someone else. I couldn't help
it. I would have pleased you, if I could, but it did not seem to be
in my hands. There is a fatality about such things. We might have
cared for each other if we had not always known you wanted us to."
Lady Jane looked about her with a bewildered air, as though her
world were crumbling.
"I have thought of it for so many years," she said at last, "that I
cannot realise how, between you, you have destroyed the one solid
hope of my life."
"I love you so much, Auntie Janie, that I think I would have married
Anthony, without love, to please you, if there had not been someone
else."
Lady Jane turned and looked at her, and her face was tragical.
"I would not have wished that, Kitty. A marriage without love! You
don't know what it is, child, especially if there has been--or might
have been--someone else. I only wanted you to have the wish of your
heart, and to bind you closer to me at the same time."
"Nothing can ever undo our love, Auntie Janie--nothing, nothing."
"Wait till your husband intervenes, Kitty. Who is it, by the way? I
have seen no sign of such an one in our circle."
"It is Mr. Leslie," said Lady Kitty with bent head.
"Anthony's friend? Yes, I know you liked him, but I thought it was
for Anthony's sake."
"I am so sorry," Lady Kitty said again. Then she went on, with a
timidity foreign to her: "Anthony is very unhappy, Auntie Janie. Can
nothing be done?"
Lady Jane turned away her head.
"What do you expect me to do, Kitty?"
"He is your own son, and he loves Pamela Graydon. She loves him too.
Why, it was written on her face, if only I had had eyes to see. Yet
she has engaged herself to another man! What is the meaning of it?"
"I am bad at riddles, Kitty."
"Anthony will unravel it--unless you will. Forgive me, Auntie Janie,
but he had better know--that his letter to Mr. Graydon remained
unposted. I do not know if there is anything else, but there is
that."
"How do you know that, Kitty?"
"I couldn't help knowing it. A few days after Anthony had gone you
sent me to the little inner drawer of your desk to find Madame
Lefevre's address. Anthony's letter to Mr. Graydon lay on the top
with the address uppermost. I never thought of it again till to-day."
"What do you want me to do, Kitty? It is quite true that I
abstracted the letter from the hall-box before it was emptied for
the night-post. If you go to my desk again you will find the letter
there with its seal unbroken. I guessed what it might contain.
Curiously enough, the habits of a lifetime kept me from opening the
letter, though I had stolen it."
Lady Kitty made a deprecating gesture, but the elder woman went on
coldly:
"I wrote myself to Mr. Graydon--a merely formal letter
explaining Anthony's absence. Afterwards I made an excuse of the
Verschoyles--people I had almost forgotten--to go myself and see
for myself. They lived in a barbarous way, as I thought they would;
and I mistook Miss Graydon's _fiancé_ for an elderly mountain
farmer. Then I asked the girl over here with the design--which you
frustrated to some extent--of making her detest us. I also told her
that you and Anthony were to be married, and that you had always
been lovers."
"Auntie Janie!"
"Yes, Kitty; you may as well know the full extent of my wickedness."
"But how could you do it? I have always known you as a proud and
honourable woman."
"I did it first of all for your sake, Kitty. I did think you cared
for Anthony; and I thought that if this entanglement were out of the
way he would care for you. I was mistaken all round."
"I ought to have spoken, Auntie Janie. Ah! I see now how much
trouble can come from even a little deceit."
"What do you want me to do, Kitty?"
"Anthony must know."
"You have no thought but for Anthony."
"The wrong must be undone--if it is possible now."
"He will turn his back on me for ever."
"He will remember that you are his mother."
"I have given him no motherhood. All I had I gave to you--and I have
lost you, too."
"You have not lost me. Whatever you did we should be the same."
"You think that now. But we can never be the same. However, about
Anthony. I daresay I can live without Anthony. What do you want me
to do?"
"He must be told. Shall I tell him, Auntie Janie?"
"No, I will tell him myself. You had better keep out of it. I shall
tell him as soon as he comes here. Where is he?"
"He went to let his uncle know he was called away. He will soon be
back."
"Send him here when he comes in. And now, Kitty, go. I have business
to do."
Lady Kitty went to the door slowly, and, as she turned the handle,
looked back at the tall figure standing in the middle of the room.
Something in the attitude smote her. She went back impulsively, and
flung her arms round Lady Jane.
"If you love me at all as you loved me yesterday, be comforted," she
cried. "I know it all came through your love for me, and my wretched
deceit, and I shall always love you, always."
She could not say if there was an answering caress.
"Things will come right," she whispered, "and Anthony will forget
his anger. We have all need of forgiveness."
"I shall never ask Anthony's," said Lady Jane. "And I do not pretend
to repent. But he will marry that man's daughter in spite of me, and
I shall be punished. Go now, Kitty. If Anthony has come in, send him
to me."
Lady Kitty went. As the door closed behind her, after a last glimpse
of the erect figure, she had an odd fancy about a picture she
remembered to have seen of a ship going down at sea with all its
flags flying.