HUGO'S VICTORY.
Kitty remained for some time in the state in which Hugo left her. She
was only faintly conscious of his departure. The shutting of the baize
door, and of another door beyond it, scarcely penetrated to her brain.
She fancied that Hugo was still standing over her with a wild light in
his eyes and the sinister smile upon his lips; and she dared not look up
to see if the fancy were true. A sick, faint feeling came over her, and
made her all the more disinclined to move.
The fire, which had been burning hollow and red, fell in at last with a
great crash; and the noise startled her into full consciousness. She sat
erect in her chair, and looked about her fearfully. No, Hugo was not
there. He had left the door of the room a little way open. With a
shuddering desire to protect herself, she staggered to the door, closed
it, looked for a key or a bolt, and found none; then sank down again
upon a chair, and tried seriously to consider the position in which she
found herself.
There was not much comfort to be gained out of the reflections which
occurred to her. If she was as much in Hugo's power as he represented
her to be, she was in evil case, indeed. She thought over the
arrangements which he seemed to have planned so carefully, and she saw
that they were all devised so as to make it appear that she had been in
the secret, that she had met him and gone away with him willingly. And
her disappearance might not be made known for days. Mrs. Baxter would
suppose that she was with her relations; her relations would think that
she was still in Edinburgh. Inquiries might be made in the course of
three or four days; but even if they were made so soon, they would
probably be fruitless. The woman at the waiting-room, whose stare Kitty
had resented, would perhaps give evidence that the gentleman had called
her his "dearest," and taken her away with him in his carriage. She
thought it all too likely that Hugo had planned matters so as to make
everybody, believe that she had eloped with him of her own free-will.
If escape were only possible! Surely there was some window, some door,
by which she could leave the house! She would not mind a little danger.
Better a broken bone or two than the fate which would await her as
Hugo's wife--or as Hugo's prisoner. She turned to the window with a
resolute step, drew aside the curtains, unbarred the shutters, and
looked out.
Disappointment awaited her. There was a long space of wall, and then the
pointed roofs of some outhouses, which hid the courtyard and the road
entirely from her sight. Beyond the roofs she could see the tops of
trees, which, it was plain, would entirely conceal any view of her
window from passers-by. It would be quite impossible to climb down to
those sharp-gabled roofs; and, as if to make assurance doubly sure, the
window was protected by strong iron bars, between which nobody could
have squeezed more than an arm or foot. Moreover, the sash was nailed
down. Kitty dropped the curtain with a despairing sigh.
After a little hesitation, she took a candle and opened the sitting-room
door. All was dark in the passage outside; but from the top of the
flight of stairs leading to a higher storey, she could distinguish a
glimmer of light which seemed to come from a window in the roof. She
went up the stairs and found two tiny rooms; one a lumber-room, the
other a bed-room. These were just underneath the roof, and had tiny
triangular windows, which were decidedly too small to allow of anyone's
escaping through them. Kitty peered through them both, and got a good
view of the loch, glimmering whitely in the starlight between its black,
wooded shores. She retraced her steps, and explored an empty room on the
floor with her sitting-room, the window of which was also barred and
nailed down. Then she went down the lower flight of steps until she came
to a closed door, which had been securely fastened from the outside by
the man who brought up her box. She shook it and beat it with her little
fists; but all in vain. Nobody seemed to hear her knocks; or, if heard,
they were disregarded. She tried the baize door with like ill-success.
Hugo had said the truth; she was a prisoner.
At last, tired and disheartened, she crept back to her sitting-room. The
fire was nearly out, and the night was a cold one. She muffled herself
in her cloak and crouched down upon the sofa, crying bitterly. She
thought herself too nervous, too excited, to sleep at all; and she
certainly did not sleep for two or three hours. But exhaustion came at
last, and, although she still started at the slightest sound, she fell
into a doze, and thence into a tolerably sound slumber, which lasted
until daylight looked in at the unshuttered window, and the baize door
moved upon its hinges to admit the girl who was to act as Miss Heron's
maid.
The very sight of a girl--a woman like herself--brought hope to Kitty's
mind. She started up, pressing her hands to her brow and pushing back
the disordered hair. Then she addressed the girl with eager, persuasive
words. But the kitchen-maid only shook her head. "Dinna ye ken that I'm
stane-deef?" she said, pointing to her ears with a grin. For a moment
Kitty in despair desisted from her efforts. Then she thought of another
argument. She produced her purse, and showed the girl some sovereigns,
then led her to the door, intimating by signs that she would give her
the money if she would but open it. The girl seemed to understand, but
laughed again and shook her head. "Na, na," she said. "I daurna lat ye
oot sae lang's the maister's here." Hugo's coadjutors were apparently
incorruptible.
The kitchen-maid proved herself equal to all the work required of her.
She relighted the fire, cleared away the uneaten supper, and brought
breakfast and hot water. Kitty discovered that everything she required
was handed to the girl through a sliding panel in the door at the bottom
of the stairs. There was no chance of escape through any chance opening
of the door.
She had no appetite, but she knew that she ought to eat in order to keep
up her strength and courage. She therefore drank some coffee, and ate
the scones which the maid brought her. The girl then took away the
breakfast-things, put fresh fuel on the fire, and departed by the lower
door. Kitty would have kept her if she could. Even a deaf kitchen-maid
was better than no company at all.
The view from the windows was no more encouraging by day than night.
There seemed to be no way of communicating with the outer world. A
letter flung from either storey would only reach the slanting roofs
below, and lie on the slates until destroyed by snow and rain. Kitty
doubted whether her voice would reach the courtyard, even if she raised
it to its highest pitch. She tried it from the attic window, but it
seemed to die away in the heights, and she could hardly hope that it had
been heard by anyone either inside or outside the house.
She was left alone for some time. About noon, as she was standing by her
window, straining her eyes to discover some trace of a human being in
the distance, whose attention she perhaps might catch if one could only
be seen, she heard the door open and close again. She knew the footstep:
it was neither that of the deaf girl nor of the man Stevens. It was Hugo
Luttrell coming once more to plead his cause or lay his commands upon
her.
She turned round unwillingly and glanced at him with a faint hope that
the night might have brought him to some change of purpose. But although
the excitement of the previous evening had disappeared, there was no
sign of relenting in his face. He came up to her and tried to take her
hand.
"_Nuit porte conseil_," he began. "Have you thought better of last
night's diversions? Have you arrived at any decision yet?"
"Oh, Hugo," she burst out, clasping her hands, "don't speak to me in
that sneering, terrible way. Have a little pity upon me. Let me go
home!"
"You shall go home to-morrow, if you will go as my wife, Kitty."
"But you know that can never be," she expostulated. "How can you expect
me to be your wife after all that you have made me suffer? Do you think
I could ever love you as a wife should do? You would be miserable; and
I--I--should break my heart." She burst into tears as she concluded, and
wrung her hands together.
"Why did you make me suffer if you want me to pity you now?" said Hugo,
in a low, merciless tone. "You used me shamefully: you know you did. I
swore then to have my revenge; and I have it now. For every one of the
tears you shed now, I have shed drops of my heart's blood. It is nothing
to me if you suffer: your pain is nothing to what mine was when you cast
me off like an old glove because your fancy had settled on Rupert
Vivian. You shall feel your master now: you shall be mine and mine only;
not his, nor any other's. I will have my revenge."
"My fancy had settled on Rupert Vivian!" repeated Kitty, with a sudden
rush of colour to her face. "Ah, how little you know about it! Rupert
Vivian is far above me: he does not care for me. You have no business to
speak of him."
"He does not care for you, but you are in love with him," said Hugo,
looking at her from between his narrowed eyelids with a long penetrating
gaze. "I understand."
Kitty shrank away from him. "No, no!" she cried. "I am not in love with
anyone."
"I know better," said Hugo. "I have seen it a long time: seen it in a
thousand ways. You made no secret of it, you know. You threw yourself in
his way: you did all that you could to attract him; but you failed. He
had to tell you to be more careful, had he not?"
"How dare you! How dare you!" cried the girl, starting up with her face
aflame. "Never, never!" Then she threw herself down on the sofa and hid
her face. Some memory came over her that made her writhe with shame.
Hugo smiled to himself.
"Everybody saw what was going on," he continued. "Everybody pitied you.
People wondered at your friends for allowing you to manifest an
unrequited attachment in that shameless manner. They supposed that you
knew no better; but they wondered that Mrs. Heron and Elizabeth Murray
did not caution you. Perhaps they did. You were never very good at
taking a caution, were you, Kitty?"
The only answer was a moan. He had found the way to torture her now; and
he meant to use his power.
"Vivian was a good deal chaffed about it. He used to be a great flirt
when he was younger, but not so much of late years, you know. I'll
confess now, Kitty, I taxed him one day with his conduct to you. He said
he was sorry; he knew that you were head and ears in love with him----"
"It is false," said Kitty, lifting a very pale face from the cushions
amongst which she had laid it. "Mr. Vivian never said anything of the
kind. He is too much of a gentleman to say a thing like that."
"What do you know of the things that men say to each other when they are
alone?" said Hugo, confident in her ignorance of the world, and
professedly contemptuous. "He said what I have told you. And he said,
too, that marriage was out of the question for him, on account of an
unfortunate entanglement in his youth--a private marriage, or something
of the kind; his wife is separated from him, but she is living still. He
asked me to let you know this as soon and as gently as I could."
"Is it true?" she asked, in a low voice. Her face seemed to have grown
ten years older in the last ten minutes: it was perfectly colourless,
and the eyes had a dull, strained look, which was not softened even by
the bright drops that still hung on her long lashes.
"Perfectly true," said Hugo. "Perhaps this paper will bring you
conviction, if my word does not."
He handed her a small slip cut from a newspaper, which had the air of
having been in his possession for some time. Kitty took it and read:--
"On the 15th of October, at St. Botolph's Church, Manchester, Rupert,
eldest son of the late Gerald Vivian, Esq., of Vivian Court, Devonshire,
to Selina Mary Smithson. No cards."
Just a commonplace announcement of marriage like any other. Kitty's eyes
travelled to the top of the paper where the date was printed: 1863. "It
is a long while ago," she said, pointing to the figures. "His wife may
be dead." Her voice sounded hoarse and unnatural, even in her own ears.
"Perhaps so," said Hugo, carelessly. "If he said that she were, I should
not be much inclined to believe him. After all these years of secrecy a
man will say anything. But he told me last year that she was living."
Kitty laid down the paper with a sort of gasp and shiver. She murmured
something to herself--it sounded like a prayer--"God help me!" or words
to that effect--but she was quite unconscious of having spoken. Hugo
took up the paper, and replaced it carefully in his pocket-book. He had
held it in reserve for some time now; but he was not quite sure that it
had done all its work.
"And now," he went on, "you see a part--not the whole--of my motives,
Kitty. I had been raging in my heart against this fellow's insolence for
long enough; I wanted to stop the slanderous tongues of the people who
were talking about you; and I hoped--when you were so kind and gracious
to me--that you meant to be my wife. Therefore, when I asked you and you
refused me, I grew desperate. Believe me, Kitty, or not, as you choose,
but my love for you has nearly maddened me. I could not leave you
to lay yourself open to the world's contempt and scorn: I was
afraid--afraid--lest Vivian should do you harm in the world's eyes, and
so I tried to save you, dear, to save you from yourself and him--even
against your own will, when I brought you here."
His eyes grew moist, and lost some of their wildness: he drew nearer,
and ventured almost timidly to take her hand. She did not repulse him,
and from her silence and motionlessness he gathered courage.
"I thought to myself," he said, "that here, at least, was a refuge: here
was a man who loved you, and was ready to give you his home and his
name, and show the world that he loved you in spite of all. Here was a
chance for you, I thought, to show that you had not given your heart
where it was not wanted; that you were not that pitiable object, a woman
scorned. But you refused me. So then I took the law into my own hands.
Was I so very wrong?"
He paused, and she suddenly burst out into wild hysterical sobs and
tears.
"Let me go home," she said, between her sobs. "I will give you my answer
then.... I will not forget! I will not be thoughtless and foolish any
more.... But let me go home first: I must go home. I cannot stay here
alone!"
"You cannot go home, Kitty," said Hugo, modulating his voice to one of
extreme softness and sweetness. He knelt before her, and took both her
hands in his. "You left Mrs. Baxter's yesterday afternoon--to meet me,
you said. Where have you been since then?--that will be the first
question. You cannot go home without me now: what would the world say?
Don't you understand?"
"What does it matter what the world says? My father would know that it
was all right," said Kitty, helplessly.
"Would your father take you in?" Hugo whispered. "Would he not rather
say that you must have planned it all, that you were not to be trusted,
that you had better have married me when I asked you? For, if you leave
this house before you are my wife, Kitty, I shall not ask you again to
marry me. Are you so simple as not to know why? You would be
compromised: that is all. You need not have obliged me to tell you so."
She wrenched her hands away from him and put them before her eyes.
"Oh, I see it all now," she moaned. "I am trapped--trapped. But I will
not marry you. I will die rather. Oh, Rupert, Rupert! why do you not
come?"
And then she fell into a fit of hysterical shrieking, succeeded by a
swoon, from which Hugo found some difficulty in recovering her. He was
obliged to call the nurse to his aid, and the nurse and the kitchen-maid
between them carried the girl upstairs and placed her on the bed. Here
Kitty came to herself by degrees, but it was thought well to leave the
kitchen-maid, Elsie, beside her for some time, for as soon as she was
left alone the hysterical symptoms reappeared. She saw Hugo no more that
day, but on the following morning, when she sat pale and listless over
the fire in her sitting-room, he reappeared. He spoke to her gently, but
she gave him no answer. She looked at him with blank, languid eyes, and
said not a word. He was almost frightened at her passivity. He thought
that he had perhaps over-strained matters: that he had sent her out of
her mind. But he did not lose hope. Kitty, with weakened powers of body
and mind, would still be to him the woman that he loved, and that he had
set his heart upon winning for his wife.
That day passed, and the next, with no change in her condition. Hugo
began to grow impatient. He resolved to try stronger measures.
But stronger measures were not necessary. On the fifth day, he came to
her at eleven o'clock in the morning, with a curious smile upon his
lips. He had an opera-glass in his hand.
"I have something to show you, Kitty," he said to her.
He led her to the window, and directed her attention to a distant point
in the view where a few yards of the highroad could be discerned. "You
see the road," he said. "Now look through the glass for a few minutes."
Languidly enough she did as he desired. The strong glass brought into
her sight in a few moments two gentlemen on horseback. Kitty uttered a
faint cry. It was her father and Mr. Colquhoun.
"I thought that we should see them in a minute or two," said Hugo,
calmly. "They were here a quarter-of-an-hour ago."
"Here! In this house?"
"Yes; making inquiries after you. I think I quite convinced them that I
knew nothing about you. They apologised for the trouble they had given
me, and went away."
"Oh, father, father!" cried Kitty, stretching out her arms and sobbing
wildly, as if she could make him hear: "Oh, father, come back! come
back! Am I to die here and never see you again--never again?"
Hugo said nothing more. He had no need. She wept herself into quietness,
and then remained silent for a long time, with her head buried in her
hands. He left her in this position, and did not return until the
evening. And then she spoke to him in a voice which showed that her
strength had deserted her, her will had been bent at last.
"Do as you please," she said. "I will be your wife. I see no other way.
But I hate you--I hate you--and I will never forgive you for what you
have done as long as ever I live."