HOW TRIX TOOK IT.
It was half-past twelve, by all the clocks and watches of Powyss Place.
Miss Stuart sat alone, in the pleasant boudoir or sitting-room,
assigned her, her foot on an ottoman, a novel in her hand, a frown on
her brow, and most beautifully dressed. In solitary state, at half-past
ten, she had breakfasted, waited upon by the trimmest of English
handmaidens in smiles and lace cap. The breakfast had been removed for
over an hour, and still Miss Stuart sat alone.
Her mamma had called to see her, so had Lady Helena, but _they_ did
not count. She wanted somebody else, and that somebody did not come. Her
novel was interesting and new, but she could not read; her troubles were
too many and great.
First, there was her ankle that pained her, and Trixy did not like
pain. Secondly, it was quite impossible she could venture to stand
upon it for the next three days, and who was to watch Sir Victor
during those three days? Thirdly, next week Lady Helena gave a large
party, and at that party it was morally and physically impossible she
could play any other part than that of wall-flower; she who was one of
the best waltzers, and loved waltzing better than any other girl in
New York. Is it any wonder, then, that an absorbing novel failed to
absorb her?
The door opened and Edith came in. At all times and in all array, Miss
Darrell must of necessity look handsome. This morning in crisp muslin
and rose-colored ribbons, a flush on her cheeks and a sparkle in her
eyes, Miss Darrell was something more than handsome--she was beautiful.
Something, that was more the memory of a smile, than a smile itself,
lingered on her lips--she was so brightly pretty, so fresh, so fair,
that it was a pleasure only to look at her.
"Good morning, Trixy," she said. "How is our poor dear ankle? It
doesn't hurt much, I hope?"
She came up behind Miss Stuart's chair, put her arms around her neck,
stooped down and kissed her forehead. The frown on Trixy's face
deepened--it was the last straw that broke the camel's back, to see
Edith Darrell looking so brightly handsome, privileged to go where she
pleased, while she was chained to this horrid chair.
"It _does_ hurt," Trixy responded crossly. "I wish I had never had
an ankle, sooner than go spraining it this way. The idea of horrid
floors, like black looking-glasses, and slipperier than a skating-rink.
Edith, how long is it since you got up?"
"Now for it!" thought Edith, and the smile she strove to repress,
dimpled her sunny face. Luckily, standing behind Trix's chair, Trix
did not see it.
"How long? Oh, since nine o'clock. You know I'm not a very early
riser."
"Did you go straight down to breakfast?"
"The breakfast hour was ten. It doesn't take me all that time to
dress."
"Where did you go then?"
"I walked in the grounds."
"Edith!" with sudden sharpness, "did you see Sir Victor?"
"Yes, I saw Sir Victor."
"Where? In the grounds too?"
"In the grounds too--smoking a cigar."
"Edith!" the sharpness changing to suspicion and alarm. "_You_ were
with Sir Victor!"
"I was with Sir Victor. That is to say, Sir Victor was with _me_."
"Bother! What did you talk about? Did he ask after me?"
"Ye-e-es," Edith answered doubtfully--the fact being Sir Victor had
utterly forgotten Miss Stuart's existence in the dizzy rapture of his
acceptance--"he asked for you, of course."
"Was that all? _He's_ a pretty attentive host, I don't think," cried
Trixy, with bitterness, "having a young lady laid up by the le--the
ankle in his house, and never so much as calling to see if she is
dead or alive!"
"My dearest Trix," said Edith, struggling with a laugh, "gentlemen
don't call upon young ladies in their chambers at break of day, even
though they have a sprained ankle. It isn't _de rigeur_."
"De rigger be blowed! It isn't my chamber; it's my private parlor; and
aristocratic as we have got lately, I don't think half-past twelve is
the break of day. Edith, upon your word, _did_ he say anything
about--about--you know what?"
"Marrying you? No, Trixy, not a word."
She put her arms closer around poor Trixy's neck, and hid her face in
Trixy's chestnut hair.
"Trix, pet, don't you think there may have been a little--just a
little, misunderstanding that night at Killarney?"
"Misunderstanding! I don't understand _you_, Edith," Miss Stuart
exclaimed, in increasing alarm. "For goodness' sake come round where I
can see you, and don't stand there like a sort of 'Get thee behind me,
Satan.' I like to look people in the face when I talk to them."
"In one moment, dear; please don't be cross. I have something that is
not pleasant to say that _you_ won't like. I am afraid to tell you.
Trix, there _was_ a misunderstanding that night."
"I don't see how; I don't believe there was. Edith Darrell, what do
you mean? He asked me to marry him--at least he told me he was in love
with me in a stupid, round-about way, and asked me if he might hope,
and if there was any danger of a refusal, or a rival, when he spoke
out, and that balderdash. He said he meant to speak to pa and ma, as
plain as print. Now how could there be a misunderstanding in all that?"
"It was, as you say, awfully stupid of him, but these Englishmen have
such different ways from what we are accustomed to. There was a
misunderstanding, I repeat. He means to speak to your father and
mother to-day, but--not about you."
"Edith!" Trix half sprung up, pale as death and with flashing eyes.
"What do you mean? Speak out, I tell you!"
"O Trix." She twined her arms still closer around her neck, and laid
her cheek coaxingly alongside of Miss Stuart's. "There has been a
horrid mistake. All the time in that boat on Killarney lake he was
talking of--me!"
"Of--you!" The two words drop from Trixy's ashen lips.
"Of me, dear, and he thinks at this moment that you understood him so.
Trixy--don't be angry with me--how could I help it--he proposed to me
yesterday afternoon."
"Proposed to you yesterday afternoon!" Trix repeats the words like one
who has been stunned by a blow, in a dazed sort of tone. "And
you--refused him, Edith?"
"Accepted him, Trixy. I said yes to Sir Victor Catheron this morning
in the grounds."
Then there was a pause. The ticking of the little Swiss clock, the
joyous warble of the thrushes, the soft rustle of the trees sounding
preternaturally loud. Beatrix Stuart sat white to the lips, with anger,
mortification, amaze, disappointment. Then she covered her face with
her hands, and burst into a vehement flood of tears.
"Trix! dear Trix!" Edith exclaimed, shocked and pained; "good Heaven,
don't cry! Trix, dearest, I never knew you were in love with him."
"In love with him!" cried Trix, looking up, her eyes flashing through
her tears, "the odious little wishy-washy, drawling coxcomb! No, I'm
not in love with him--not likely--but what business had he to go
talking like that, and hemming and hawing, and hinting, and--oh!"
cried Trix, with a sort of vicious screech, "I should like to tear his
eyes out!"
"I dare say you would--the desire is both natural and proper,"
answered Edith, smothering a second desire to laugh; "but, under the
circumstances, not admissible. It was a stupid proceeding, no doubt,
his speaking to you at all, but you see the poor fellow thinks you
understood him, and meant it for the best."
"Thought I understood him!" retorted Miss Stuart, with a vengeful
glare. "Oh, _shouldn't_ I like to make him understand me! The way
he went on that night, kissing my hand, and calling me Beatrix, and
talking of speaking to pa, and meaning you all the time, is
enough--enough to drive a person stark, staring mad. All Englishmen
are fools--there!" exclaimed Miss Stuart, sparks of fire drying up her
tears, "and Sir Victor Catheron's the biggest fool of the lot!"
"What, Trix! for wanting to marry me?"
"Yes, for wanting to marry you. You, who don't care a bad cent for
him!"
"How many bad cents did you care, Miss Stuart, when you were so
willing to be his wife?"
"More than you, Miss Darrell, for at least I was not in love with any
one else."
"And who may Miss Darrell be in love with, pray?"
"With Charley," answered Trix, her face still afire. "Deny it if you
dare! In love with Charley, and he with you."
She was looking up at her rival, her angry gray eyes so like Charley's
as she spoke, in everything but expression, that for an instant Edith
was disconcerted. She could not meet them. For once in her life her
own eyes fell.
"Are we going to quarrel, Trix? Is it worth while, for a man you have
decided we neither of us care for--we who have been like sisters so
long?"
"Like sisters!" Trix repeated bitterly. "Edith, I wonder if you are
not scheming and deceitful!"
"Beatrix!"
"Oh, you needn't 'Beatrix' me! I mean it. I believe there has been
double dealing in this. He paid attention to me before you ever came
to New York. I believe if I hadn't been sea-sick he would have
proposed to me on the ship. But I _was_ sea-sick,--it's always my
luck to be everything that's miserable,--and _you_ were with him
night and day."
"Night and day! Good gracious, Trixy, this is awful!"
"You know what I mean," pursued Trix loftily. "You got him in love
with you. Then, all the way to Killarney you flirted with Charley--poor
Charley--and made him jealous, and jealousy finished him. You're a
very clever girl, Edith, and I wish you a great deal of joy."
"Thank you; you say it as if you did. I don't take the trouble to deny
your charges; they're not worth it--they are false, and you know them
to be so. I never sought out Sir Victor Catheron, either in New York,
on board ship, or elsewhere. If he had been a prince, instead of a
baronet, I would not have done it. I have borne a great deal, but even
you may go too far, Trixy. Sir Victor has done me the honor of falling
in love with me--for he does love me, and he has asked me to be his
wife. I have accepted him, of course; it was quite impossible I could
do otherwise. If, at Killarney, he was stupid, and you made a blunder,
am I to be held accountable? He does not dream for a moment of the
misunderstanding between you. He thinks he made his meaning as clear
as day. And now I will leave you; if I stay longer we may quarrel, and
I--I don't want to quarrel with you, Trixy."
Her voice broke suddenly. She turned to the door, and all the smallness
of her own conduct dawned upon Trix. Her generous heart--it _was_
generous in spite of all this--smote her with remorse.
"Oh, come back, Edith!" she said; "don't go. I won't quarrel with you.
I'm a wretch. It's dreadfully mean and contemptible of me, to make
such a howling about a man that does not care a straw for me. When I
told you, _you_ wished me joy. Just come back and give me time to
catch my breath, and I'll wish you joy too. But it's so sudden, so
unexpected. O Dithy, I thought you liked Charley all this while!"
_How_ like Charley's the handsome dark gray eyes were! Edith Darrell
could not meet them; she turned and looked out of the window.
"I like him, certainly; I would be very ungrateful if I did not. He is
like a brother to me."
"A brother! Oh, bother," retorted Trix, with immeasurable scorn and
dignity. "Edith, honor bright! Haven't you and Charley been in love
with each other these two years?"
Edith laughed.
"A very leading question, and a very absurd one. I don't think it is
in either your brother or me to be very deeply in love. _He_ would
find it feverish and fatiguing--you know how he objects to fatigue;
and I--well, if love be anything like what one reads of in books, an
all-absorbing, all consuming passion that won't let people eat or
sleep, I have never felt it, and I don't want to. I think that sort of
love went out of fashion with Amanda Fitzallen. You're a sentimental
goose, Miss Stuart, and have taken Byron and Miss Landon in too large
doses."
"But you like him," persisted his sister, "don't you, Dithy?"
"Like him--_like_ him!" Her whole face lit up for a second with a
light that made it lovely. "Well, yes, Trix, I don't mind owning that
much--I do like Charley--like him so well that I won't marry and ruin
him. For it means just that, Trixy--ruin. The day we become anything
more than friends and cousins your father would disinherit him, and
your father isn't the heavy father of the comedy, to rage through four
acts, and come round in the fifth, with his fortune and blessing.
Charley and I have common-sense, and we have shaken hands and agreed
to be good friends and cousins, nothing more."
"What an admirable thing is common-sense! Does Sir Victor know about
the hand-shaking and the cousinly agreement?"
"Don't be sarcastic, Beatrix; it isn't your forte! I have nothing to
confess to Sir Victor when I am married to him; neither your brother
nor any other man will hold the place in my heart (such as it is) that
he will. Be very sure of that."
"Ah! such as it is," puts in Trix cynically; "and when, is it to be,
Dithy--the wedding?"
"My dear Trix, I only said yes this morning. Gentlemen don't propose
and fix the wedding-day all in a breath. It will be ages from now, no
doubt. Of course Lady Helena will object."
"You don't mind that?"
"Not a whit. A grand-aunt is--a grand-aunt, nothing more. She is his
only living relative, he is of age, able to speak and act for himself.
The true love of any good man honors the woman who receives it. In
that way Sir Victor Catheron honors me, and in no other. I have
neither wealth nor lineage; in all other things, as God made us, I am
his equal!"
She moved to the door, her dark eyes shining, her head erect, looking
in her beauty and her pride a mate for a king.
"There is to be a driving-party to Eastlake Abbey, after luncheon,"
she said; "you are to be carried down to the barouche and ride with
your father and mother, and Lady Helena--Charley and Captain Hammond
for your cavaliers."
"And you?"
"Sir Victor drives me."
"Alone, of course?" Trixy says, with a last little bitter sneer.
"Alone, of course," Edith answers coldly. Then she opens the door and
disappears.