ELIZABETH'S CONFESSION.
"I wonder what she wants with me," said Percival Heron, meditatively. He
was sitting at his solitary breakfast-table, having pushed from him an
empty coffee-cup and several newspapers: a letter from Elizabeth was in
his hands. It consisted of a few lines only, and the words that had
roused his wonderment were these:--
"I am very anxious to see you. Could you come down to Strathleckie at
once? If not, pray come as soon as possible."
"I suppose she is too true a woman to say exactly what she wants," said
Percival, a gay smile curling his lips beneath his black moustache.
"Perhaps she won't be very angry with me this time if I press her a
little on the subject of our marriage. We parted on not very good terms
last time, rather _en delicatesse_, if I'm not mistaken, after
quarrelling over our old subject of dispute, the tutor. Well, my lady's
behests are to be obeyed. I'll wire an acceptance of the invitation and
start to-night."
He made the long journey very comfortably, grumbling now and then in a
good-tempered way at Elizabeth for sending for him in so abrupt a
fashion; but on the whole he felt pleased that she had done so. It
showed that she had confidence in him. And he was very anxious for the
engagement to be made public: its announcement would be a sort of
justification to him in allowing her to do as much as she had done for
his family. Percival had, in truth, always protested against her
generosity, but failed in persuading his father not to accept it. Mr.
Heron was too simple-minded to see why he should not take Elizabeth's
gifts, and Mrs. Heron did not see the force of Percival's arguments at
all.
"Elizabeth is not here, then," he said to Kitty, who met him at the
station.
"No," answered Kitty in rather a mysterious voice. "She wouldn't come."
"Why wouldn't she come?" said Percival, sharply. He followed his sister
into the waggonette as he spoke: he did not care about driving, and
gladly resigned the reins to the coachman.
"I can't tell you. I don't think she is well."
"Not well? What's the matter?"
"I don't know. She always has a headache. Did she want you to come,
Percival?"
"She wrote to ask me."
"I'm glad of that."
"Kitty, will you have the goodness to say what you mean, instead of
hinting?"
Kitty looked frightened.
"I don't mean anything," she said, hurriedly, while a warm wave of
colour spread itself over her cheeks and brow.
"Don't mean anything? That's nonsense. You should not say anything then.
Out with it, Kitty. What do you think is wrong with Elizabeth?"
"Oh, Percival, don't be so angry with me," said Kitty, with the tears in
her eyes. "Indeed, I scarcely meant to speak; but I did wish you to
understand beforehand----"
"What?"
"I don't think she wants to marry you." And then Kitty glanced up from
under her thick, curling lashes, and was startled at the set and rigid
change which suddenly came over her brother's features. She dared not
say any more, and for some minutes they drove on in silence. Presently,
Percival turned round to her with an icy sternness in his voice.
"You should not say such things unless you have authority from Elizabeth
to say them. Did she tell you to do so?"
"No, no, indeed she did not," cried Kitty, "and, of course, I may be
mistaken; but I came to see you, Percival, on purpose to tell you."
"No woman is happy unless she is making mischief," said her brother,
grimly.
"You ought not to say that, Percival; it is not fair. And I must say
what I came to say. Elizabeth is very unhappy about something. I don't
know what; and after all her goodness to us you ought to be careful that
you are not making her do anything against her will."
"Did you ever know Elizabeth do anything against her will?"
"Against her wishes, then," said Kitty, firmly, "and against the
dictates of her heart."
"'These be fine words, indeed!'" quoted Percival, with a savage laugh.
"And who has taught you to talk about the 'dictates of her heart?' Leave
Elizabeth and me to settle our affairs between ourselves, if you please.
We know our duty to each other without taking advice from a little
schoolgirl."
Kitty stifled a sob. "If you break Elizabeth's heart," she said,
vehemently, "you can't say I didn't warn you."
Percival looked at her, stifled a question at the tip of his tongue, and
clutched his newspaper viciously. It occurred to him that Kitty knew
something, that she would never have uttered a mere vague suspicion; but
he would not ask her a direct question. No, Elizabeth's face and voice
would soon tell him whether she was unhappy.
He was right. Kitty had seen the parting between Brian and Elizabeth;
and she had guessed a great deal more than she saw. She spoke out of no
desire to make mischief, but from very love for her cousin and care for
her happiness; but when she noted Percival's black brows she doubted
whether she had done right.
Percival did not speak again throughout the drive. He sat with his eyes
bent on his newspaper, his hand playing with his moustache, a frown on
his handsome face. It was not until the carriage stopped at the door of
Strathleckie, and he had given his hand to Kitty to help her down that
he opened his lips.
"Don't repeat what you have said to me to any other person, please."
"Of course not, Percival."
There was no time for more. The barking of dogs, the shouts of children,
the greeting of Mr. Heron, prevented anything further. Percival looked
round impatiently. But Elizabeth was not there.
He was tired, although he would not confess it, with his night journey;
and a bath, breakfast, and change of clothes did not produce their usual
exhilarating effect. He found it difficult to talk to his father or to
support the noise made by the children. Kitty's hint had put his mind
into a ferment.
"Can these boys not be sent to their lessons?" he said, at last,
knitting his brows.
"Oh, don't you know?" said Harry, cutting a delighted caper. "We have
holidays now. Mr. Stretton has gone away. He went away a fortnight ago,
or nearly three weeks now."
Percival looked suddenly at Kitty, who coloured vividly.
"Why did he go?" he asked.
"I'm sure I can't tell you," said Mr. Heron, almost peevishly. "Family
affairs, he said. And now he has gone to South America. I don't
understand it at all."
Neither did Percival.
"Where is Elizabeth?" said Mr. Heron, looking round the room as if in
search of her. "She can't know that Percival has come: go and tell her,
one of you boys."
"No, never mind," said Percival, quickly; but it was too late, the boy
was gone.
There was a little silence. Percival sat at one side of the
whitely-draped table, with a luxurious breakfast before him and a great
bowl of autumn flowers. The sunshine streamed in brightly through the
broad, low windows; the pleasant room was fragrant with the scent of the
burning wood upon the fire; the dogs wandered in and out, and stretched
themselves comfortably upon the polished oak floor. Kitty sat in a
cushioned window-seat and looked anxious; Mr. Heron stood by the
fireplace and moved one of the burning logs in the grate with his foot.
A sort of constraint had fallen over the little party, though nobody
quite knew why; and it was not dispelled, even when Harry's footsteps
were heard upon the stairs, and he threw open the door for Elizabeth.
Percival threw down his serviette and started up to meet her. And then
he knew why his father and sister looked uncomfortable. Elizabeth was
changed; it was plain enough that Elizabeth must be ill.
She was thinner than he had ever seen her, and her face had grown pale.
But the fixed gravity and mournfulness of her expression struck him even
more than the sharpened contour of her features or the dark lines
beneath her eyes. She looked as if she suffered: as if she was suffering
still.
"You are ill!" he said, abruptly, holding her by the hand and looking
down into her face.
"That's what I've been saying all along!" muttered Mr. Heron. "I knew he
would be shocked by her looks. You should have prepared him, Kitty."
"I have had neuralgia, that is all," said Elizabeth, quietly.
"Strathleckie does not suit you; you ought to go away," remarked
Percival, devouring her with his eyes. "What have you been doing to
yourself?"
"Nothing: I am perfectly well; except for this neuralgia," she said,
with a faint, vexed smile. "Did you have a comfortable journey, and have
you breakfasted?"
"Yes, thank you."
"Then you will come out with me for a little stroll? I want to show you
the grounds; and the others can spare you to me for a little while," she
went on, with perfect ease and fluency. The only change in her manner
was its unusual gravity, and the fact that she did not seem able to meet
Percival's eye. "Are you too tired?"
"Not at all." And they left the room together.
She took him down the hill on which the house stood, by a narrow,
winding path, to the side of a picturesque stream in the valley below.
He had seen the place before, but he followed her without a word until
they reached a wooden seat close to the water's edge, with its back
fixed to the steep bank behind it. The rowan trees, with their clusters
of scarlet berries, hung over it, and great clumps of ferns stood on
either hand. It was an absolutely lonely place, and Percival knew
instinctively that Elizabeth had brought him to it because she could
here speak without fear of interruption.
"It is a beautiful place, is it not?" she said, as he took his seat
beside her.
He did not answer. He rather disdained the trivial question. He was
silent for a few minutes, and then said briefly:--
"Tell me why you wanted me."
"I have been unhappy," she said, simply.
"That is easy to be seen."
"Is it? Oh, I am sorry for that. But I have had neuralgia. I have,
indeed. That makes me look pale and tired."
Percival threw his arm over the back of the seat with an impatient
motion, and looked at the river. "Nothing else?" he asked, drily. "It
seems hardly worth while to send for me if that was all. The doctor
would have done better."
"There is something else," said Elizabeth, in so quiet and even a voice
as to sound almost indifferent.
"Well, I supposed so. What is it?"
"You are making it very hard for me to tell you, Percival," said she,
with one of her old, straight glances. "What is it you know? What is it
you suspect?"
"Excuse me, Elizabeth, I have not said that I know or suspect anything.
Everybody seems a little uncomfortable, but that is nothing. What is the
matter?"
As she did not answer, he turned and looked at her. Her face was pale,
but there was a look of indomitable resolve about her which made him
flinch from his purpose of maintaining a cold and reserved manner. A
sudden fear ran through his heart lest Kitty's warning should be true!
"Elizabeth," he said, quickly and passionately, "forgive me for the way
in which I have spoken. I am an ill-tempered brute. It is my anxiety for
you that makes me seem so savage. I cannot bear to see you look as you
do: it breaks my heart!"
Her lip trembled at this. She would rather that he had preserved his
hard, sullen manner: it would have made it more easy for her to tell her
story. She locked her hands closely together, and answered in low,
hesitating tones:--
"I am not worth your anxiety. I did not mean to be--untrue--to you,
Percival. I suffered a great deal before I made up my mind that I had
better tell you--everything."
A tear fell down her pale cheek unheeded. Percival rose to his feet.
"I don't think there is much to tell, is there?" he said. "You mean that
you wish to give me up, to throw me over? Is that all?"
His words were calm, but the tone of ironical bitterness in which they
were uttered cut Elizabeth to the quick. She lifted her head proudly.
"No," she said, "you are wrong. I wish nothing of the kind."
He stood in an attitude of profound attention, waiting for her to
explain. His face wore its old, rigid look: the upright line between his
brows was very marked indeed. But he would not speak again.
"Percival," she said--and her tone expressed great pain and profound
self-abasement--"when I promised to marry you--someday, you will
remember that I never said I loved you. I thought that I should learn to
love in time. And so I did--but not--not you."
"And who taught you the lesson that I failed to impart?" asked Percival,
with the sneer in his voice which she knew and dreaded.
"Don't ask me," she said, painfully. "It is not fair to ask me that. I
did not know until it was too late."
"Until he--whoever he was--asked you to marry him, I suppose? Well, when
is the ceremony to take place? Do you expect me to dance at the wedding?
Do you think I am going tamely to resign my rights? My God, Elizabeth,
is it you who can treat me in this way? Are all women as false as you?"
He struck his foot fiercely against the ground, and walked away from
her. When he came back he found her in the same position; white as a
statue, with her hands clasped together upon her knee, and her eyes
fixed upon the running water.
"Do you think that I am a stone," he said, violently, "that you tell me
the story of your falseness so quietly, as if it were a tale that I
should like to hear? Do you think that I feel nothing, or do you care so
little what I feel? You had better have refused me outright at once than
kept me dangling at your feet for a couple of years, only to throw me
over at the last!"
"I have not thrown you over," she said, raising her blue-grey eyes
steadily to his agitated face. "I wanted to tell you; that was all. If
you like to marry me now, knowing the truth, you may do so."
"What!"
"I may have been false to you in heart," she said, the hot blood tinting
her cheeks with carnation as she spoke, "but I will not break my word."
"And what did your lover say to that?" he asked, roughly, as he stood
before her. "Did he not say that you were as false to him as you were to
me? Did he not say that he would come back again and again, and force
you to be true, at least, to him? For that is what I should have done in
his place."
"Then," Elizabeth said, with a touch of antagonism in her tones, "he was
nobler than you."
"Oh, no doubt," said Percival, tossing aside his head. "No doubt he is a
finer fellow in every way. Am I to have the pleasure of making his
acquaintance?"
His scorn, his intolerance, were rousing her spirit at last. She spoke
firmly, with a new light in her eyes, a new self-possession in her
manner.
"You are unjust, Percival. I think that you do not understand what I
mean to tell you. He accepted my decision, and I shall never see him
again. I thought at first that I would not tell you, but let our
engagement go on quietly; and then again I thought that it would be
unfair to you not to tell you the whole truth. I leave it to you to say
what we should do. I have no love to give you--but you knew that from
the first. The difference now is that I--I love another."
Her voice sank almost to a whisper as she uttered the last few words,
and she covered her face with her hands. Percival's brow cleared a
little; the irony disappeared from his lips, the flash of scorn from his
eye. He advanced to her side, and stood looking down at her for several
minutes before he attempted any answer to her speech.
"You mean to say," he began, in a softer tone, "that you rejected this
man because you had given your promise to me?"
"Yes."
"You sent him away?"
"Yes."
"And he knew the reason? Did he know that you loved him, Elizabeth?"
The answer was given reluctantly, after a long pause. "I do not know. I
am afraid--he did."
Percival drew a short, impatient breath. "You must forgive me if I was
violent just now, Elizabeth. This is very hard to bear."
"I dare not ask your pardon," she murmured, with her face still between
her hands.
"Oh, my pardon? That will do you little good," he said, contemptuously.
"The question is--what is to be done? I suppose this man--this lover of
yours--is within call, as it were, Elizabeth? You could summon him with
your little finger? If I released you from this engagement to me, you
could whistle him back to you next day?"
"Oh, no," she said, looking up at him wonderingly. "He is gone away from
England. I do not know where he is."
"It is this man Stretton, then?" said Percival, quietly.
A sudden rush of colour to her face assured him that he had guessed the
truth. "I always suspected him," he muttered.
"You had no need. He behaved as honourably as possibly. He did not know
of my engagement to you."
"Honourably? A penniless adventurer making love to one of the richest
women in Scotland!"
"You mistake, Percival. He did not know that I was rich."
"A likely story!"
"You insult him--and me," said Elizabeth, in a very low tone. "If you
have no pity, have some respect--for him--if you have none for me." And
then she burst into an agony of tears, such as he had never seen her
shed before. But he was pitiless still. The wound was very deep: his
pain very sharp and keen.
"Have you had any pity for me?" he said. "Why should I pity him? To my
mind, he is the most enviable man on earth, because he has your love.
Respect him, when he has stolen from me the thing that I value more than
my life! You do not know what you say."
She still wept, and presently he sat down beside her and leaned his head
on his hand, looking at her from out of the shadow made by his bent
fingers above his eyes.
"Let me understand matters clearly," he said. "You sent him away, and he
has gone to America, never to return. Is that it? And you will marry me,
although you do not love me, because you have promised to do so, if I
ask you? What do you expect me to say?"
She shook her head. She could not speak.
"I am not generous," he went on deliberately. "You have known me long
enough to be aware that I am a very selfish man. I will not give you up
to Stretton. He is not the right husband for you. He is a man whom you
picked up in the streets, without a character, without antecedents, with
a history which he dares not tell. So much I gathered from my father. I
say nothing about his behaviour in this case; he may have acted well, or
he may have acted badly; I have no opinion to give. But you shall never
be his wife."
Elizabeth's tears were dried as if by magic. She sat erect, listening
with set lips and startled eyes to the fierce energy of his tones.
"I accept your sacrifice," he said. "You will thank me in the end that I
did so. No, I do not release you from your engagement, Elizabeth. You
have said that you would keep your word, and I hold you to it."
He drew her to him with his arm, and kissed her cheek with passionate
determination. She shrank away, but he would not let her go.
"No," he proceeded, "you are my promised wife, Elizabeth. I have no
intention of giving you up for Stretton or anybody else. I love you more
than ever now that I see how brave and honest you can be. We will have
no more concealments. When we go back to the house we will tell all the
world of our engagement. It was the secrecy that worked this mischief."
She wrenched herself away from him with a look of mingled pain and
anger. "Percival!" she cried, "do you want to make me hate you?"
"I would rather have hate than indifference," he answered. "And whether
you hate me or not, Elizabeth, you shall be my wife before the year is
out. I shall not let you go."