The Hoyden

by Duchess

CHAPTER II.

HOW MARGARET PLEADS FOR THE LITTLE HOYDEN, AND WITH WHAT ILL-SUCCESS.

Margaret Knollys, entering the room and seeing the signs of agitation in the two faces before her, stops on the threshold.

"I am disturbing you. I can come again," says she, in her clear, calm voice.

"No," says Mrs. Bethune abruptly.

She makes a gesture as if to keep her.

"Not at all. Not at all, dear Margaret. Pray stay, and give me a little help," says Lady Rylton plaintively.

She pulls forward a little chair near her, as if to show Margaret that she must say, and Miss Knollys comes quickly to her. Marian Bethune is Lady Rylton's real niece. Margaret is her niece by marriage.

A niece to be proud of, in spite of the fact that she is thirty years of age and still unmarried. Her features, taken separately, would debar her for ever from being called either pretty or beautiful; yet there have been many in her life-time who admired her, and three, at all events, who would have gladly given their all to call her theirs. Of these one is dead, and one is married, and one—still hopes.

There had been a fourth. Margaret loved him! Yet he was the only one whom Margaret should not have loved. He was unworthy in all points. Yet, when he went abroad, breaking cruelly and indifferently all ties with her (they had been engaged), Margaret still clung to him, and ever since has refused all comers for his sake. Her face is long and utterly devoid of colour; her nose is too large; her mouth a trifle too firm for beauty; her eyes, dark and earnest, have, however, a singular fascination of their own, and when she smiles one feels that one must love her. She is a very tall woman, and slight, and gracious in her ways. She is, too, a great heiress, and a woman of business, having been left to manage a huge property at the age of twenty-two. Her management up to this has been faultless.

"Now, how can I help you?" asks she, looking at Lady Rylton. "What is distressing you?"

"Oh! you know," says Mrs. Bethune, breaking impatiently into the conversation. "About Maurice and this girl! This new girl! There," contemptuously, "have been so many of them!"

"You mean Miss Bolton," says Margaret, in her quiet way. "Do you seriously mean," addressing Lady Rylton, "that you desire this marriage?"

"Desire it? No. It is a necessity!" says Lady Rylton. "Who could desire a daughter-in-law of no lineage, and with the most objectionable tastes? But she has money! That throws a cloak over all defects."

"I don't think that poor child has so many defects as you fancy," says Miss Knollys. "But for all that I should not regard her as a suitable wife for Maurice."

Mrs. Bethune leans back in her chair and laughs.

"A suitable wife for Maurice!" repeats she. "Where is she to be found?"

"Here! In this girl!" declares Lady Rylton solemnly. "Margaret, you know how we are situated. You know how low we have fallen—you can understand that in this marriage lies our last hope. If Maurice can be induced to marry Miss Bolton——"

A sound of merry laughter interrupts her here. There comes the sound of steps upon the terrace—running steps. Instinctively the three women within the room grow silent and draw back a little. Barely in time; a tiny, vivacious figure springs into view, followed by a young man of rather stout proportions.

"No, no, no!" cries the little figure, "you couldn't beat me. I bet you anything you like you couldn't. You may play me again if you will, and then," smiling and shaking her head at him, "we shall see!"

The windows are open and every word can be heard.

"Your future daughter-in-law," says Mrs. Bethune, in a low voice, nodding her beautiful head at Lady Rylton.

"Oh, it is detestable! A hoyden—a mere hoyden," says Lady Rylton pettishly. "Look at her hair!"

And, indeed, it must be confessed that the hoyden's hair is not all it ought to be. It is in effect "all over the place"—it is straight here, and wandering there; but perhaps its wildness helps to make more charming the naughty childish little face that peeps out of it.

"She has no manners—none!" says Lady Rylton. "She——"

"Ah, is that you, Lady Rylton?" cries the small creature on the terrace, having caught a glimpse of her hostess through the window.

"Yes, come in—come in!" cries Lady Rylton, changing her tone at once, and smiling and beckoning to the girl with long fingers. "I hope you have not been fatiguing yourself on the tennis-courts, you dearest child!"

Her tones are cooing.

"I have won, at all events!" says Tita, jumping in over the window-sill. "Though Mr. Gower," glancing back at her companion, "won't acknowledge it."

"Why should I acknowledge it?" says the stout young man. "It's folly to acknowledge anything."

"But the truth is the truth!" says the girl, facing him.

"Oh, no; on the contrary, it's generally a lie," says he.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," says Miss Bolton, turning her back on him, which proceeding seems to fill the stout young man's soul with delight.

"Do come and sit down, dear child; you look exhausted," says Lady
Rylton, still cooing.

"I'm not," says Tita, shaking her head. "Tennis is not so very exhausting—is it, Mrs. Bethune?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. It seems to have exhausted your hair, at all events," says Mrs. Bethune, with her quick smile. "I think you had better go upstairs and settle it; it is very untidy."

"Is it? Is it?" says Tita.

She runs her little fingers through her pretty short locks, and gazes round. Her eyes meet Margaret's.

"No, no," says the latter, laughing. "It looks like the hair of a little girl. You," smiling, "are a little girl. Go away and finish your fight with Mr. Gower."

"Yes. Come! Miss Knollys is on my side. She knows I shall win," says the stout young man; and, whilst disputing with him at every step, Tita disappears.

"What a girl! No style, no manners," says Lady Rylton; "and yet I must receive her as a daughter. Fancy living with that girl! A silly child, with her hair always untidy, and a laugh that one can hear a mile off. Yet it must be done."

"After all, it is Maurice who will have to live with her," says Mrs.
Bethune.

"Oh, I hope not," says Margaret quickly.

"Why?" asks Lady Rylton, turning to her with sharp inquiry.

"It would never do," says Margaret with decision. "They are not suited to each other. Maurice! and that baby! It is absurd! I should certainly not counsel Maurice to take such a step as that!"

"Why not? Good heavens, Margaret, I hope you are not in love with him, too!" says Lady Rylton.

"Too?"

Margaret looks blank.

"She means me," says Mrs. Bethune, with a slight, insolent smile.
"You know, don't you, how desperately in love with Maurice I am?"

"I know nothing," says Miss Knollys, a little curtly.

"Ah, you will!" says Mrs. Bethune, with her queer smile.

"The fact is, Margaret," says Lady Rylton, with some agitation, "that if Maurice doesn't marry this girl, there—there will be an end of us all. He must marry her."

"But he doesn't love—he barely knows her—and a marriage without love——"

"Is the safest thing known."

"Under given circumstances! I grant you that if two people well on in life, old enough to know their own minds, and what they are doing, were to marry, it might be different. They might risk a few years of mere friendship together, and be glad of the venture later on. But for two young people to set out on life's journey with nothing to steer by—that would be madness!"

"Ah! yes. Margaret speaks like a book," says Mrs. Bethune, with an amused air; "Maurice, you see, is so young, so inexperienced——"

"At all events, Tita is only a child."

"Tita! Is that her name?"

"A pet name, I fancy. Short for Titania; she is such a little thing."

"Titania—Queen of the Fairies; I wonder if the original Titania's father dealt in buttons! Is it buttons, or soap, or tar? You didn't say," says Mrs. Bethune, turning to Lady Rylton.

"I really don't know—and as it has to be trade, I can't see that it matters," says Lady Rylton, frowning.

"Nothing matters, if you come to think of it," says Mrs. Bethune. "Go on, Margaret—you were in the middle of a sermon; I dare say we shall endure to the end."

"I was saying that Miss Bolton is only a child."

"She is seventeen. She told us about it last night at dinner. Gave us month and day. It was very clever of her. We ought to give her birthday-gifts, don't you think? And yet you call her a child!"

"At seventeen, what else?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Margaret," says Lady Rylton pettishly; "and, above all things, don't be old-fashioned. There is no such product nowadays as a child of seventeen. There isn't time for it. It has gone out! The idea is entirely exploded. Perhaps there were children aged seventeen long ago—one reads of them, I admit, but it is too long ago for one to remember. Why, I was only eighteen when I married your uncle."

"Pour uncle!" says Mrs. Bethune; her tone is full of feeling.

Lady Rylton accepts the feeling as grief for the uncle's death; but Margaret, casting a swift glance at Mrs. Bethune, wonders if it was meant for grief for the uncle's life—with Lady Rylton.

"He was the ugliest man I ever saw, without exception," says Lady Rylton placidly; "and I was never for a moment blind to the fact, but he was well off at that time, and, of course, I married him. I wasn't in love with him." She pauses, and makes a little apologetic gesture with her fan and shoulders. "Horrid expression, isn't it?" says she. "In love! So terribly bourgeois. It ought to be done away with. However, to go on, you see how admirably my marriage turned out. Not a hitch anywhere. Your poor dear uncle and I never had a quarrel. I had only to express a wish, and it was gratified."

"Poor dear uncle was so clever," says Mrs. Bethune, with lowered lids.

Again Margaret looks at her, but is hardly sure whether sarcasm is really meant.

"Clever? Hardly, perhaps," says Lady Rylton meditatively. "Clever is scarcely the word."

"No, wise—wise is the word," says Mrs. Bethune.

Her eyes are still downcast. It seems to Margaret that she is inwardly convulsed with laughter.

"Well, wise or not, we lived in harmony," says Lady Rylton with a sigh and a prolonged sniff at her scent-bottle. "With us it was peace to the end."

"Certainly; it was peace at the end," says Mrs. Bethune solemnly.

It was, indeed, a notorious thing that the late Sir Maurice had lived in hourly fear of his wife, and had never dared to contradict her on any subject, though he was a man of many inches, and she one of the smallest creatures on record.

"True! true! You knew him so well!" says Lady Rylton, hiding her eyes behind the web of a handkerchief she is holding. One tear would have reduced it to pulp. "And when he was——" She pauses.

"Was dead?" says Margaret kindly, softly.

"Oh, don't, dear Margaret, don't!" says Lady Rylton, with a tragical start. "That dreadful word! One should never mention death! It is so rude! He, your poor uncle—he left us with the sweetest resignation on the 18th of February, 1887."

"I never saw such resignation," says Mrs. Bethune, with deep emphasis.

She casts a glance at Margaret, who, however, refuses to have anything to do with it. But, for all that, Mrs. Bethune is clearly enjoying herself. She can never, indeed, refrain from sarcasm, even when her audience is unsympathetic.

"Yes, yes; he was resigned," says Lady Rylton, pressing her handkerchief to her nose.

"So much so, that one might almost think he was glad to go," says
Mrs. Bethune, nodding her head with beautiful sympathy.

She is now shaking with suppressed laughter.

"Yes; glad. It is such a comfort to dwell on it," says Lady Rylton, still dabbing her eyes. "He was happy—quite happy when he left me."

"I never saw anyone so happy," says Mrs. Bethune.

Her voice sounds choking; no doubt it is emotion. She rises and goes to the window. The emotion seems to have got into her shoulders.

"All which proves," goes on Lady Rylton, turning to Margaret, "that a marriage based on friendship, even between two young people, is often successful."

"But surely in your case there was love on one side," says Miss
Knollys, a little impatiently. "My uncle——"

"Oh, he adored me!" cries she ecstatically, throwing up her pretty hands, her vanity so far overcoming her argument that she grows inconsistent. "You know," with a little simper, "I was a belle in my day."

"I have heard it," says Margaret hastily, who, indeed, has heard it ad nauseam. "But with regard to this marriage, Tessie, I don't believe you will get Maurice to even think of it."

"If I don't, then he is ruined!" Lady Rylton gets up from her chair, and takes a step or two towards Margaret. "This house-party that I have arranged, with this girl in it, is a last effort," says she in a low voice, but rather hysterically. She clasps her hands together. "He must—he must marry her. If he refuses——"

"But she may refuse him," says Margaret gently; "you should think of that."

"She—she refuse? You are mad!" says Lady Rylton. "A girl—a girl called Bolton."

"It is certainly an ugly name," says Margaret in a conciliatory way.

"And yet you blame me because I desire to give her Rylton instead, a name as old as England itself. I tell you, Margaret," with a little delicate burst of passion, "that it goes to my very soul to accept this girl as a daughter. She—she is hateful to me, not only because of her birth, but in every way. She is antagonistic to me. She—would you believe it?—she has had the audacity to argue with me about little things, as if she—she," imperiously, "should have an opinion when I was present."

"My dear Tessie, we all have opinions, and you know you said yourself that at seventeen nowadays one is no longer a child."

"I wish, Margaret, you would cure yourself of that detestable habit of repeating one's self to one's self," says Lady Rylton resentfully. "There," sinking back in her chair, and saturating her handkerchief with some delicate essence from a little Louis Quatorze bottle beside her, "it isn't worth so much worry. But to say that she would refuse Maurice——"

"Why should she not? She looks to me like a girl who would not care to risk all her future life for mere position. I mean," says Margaret a little sadly, "that she looks to me as if she would be like that when she is older, and understands."

"Then she must look to you like a fool," says Lady Rylton petulantly.

"Hardly that. Like a girl, rather, with sense, and with a heart."

"My dear girl, we know how romantic you are, we know that old story of yours," says Lady Rylton, who can be singularly nasty at times. "Such an old story, too. I think you might try to forget it."

"Does one ever forget?" says Margaret coldly. A swift flush has dyed her pale face. "And story or no story, I shall always think that the woman who marries a man without caring for him is a far greater fool than the woman who marries a man for whom she does care."

"After all, I am not thinking of a woman," says Lady Rylton with a shrug. "I am thinking of Maurice. This girl has money; and, of course, she will accept him if I can only induce him to ask her."

"It is not altogether of course!"

"I think it is," says Lady Rylton obstinately.

Miss Knollys shrugs her shoulders.

All at once Mrs. Bethune turns from the window and advances towards
Margaret. There is a sudden fury in her eyes.

"What do you mean?" says she, stopping short before Miss Knollys, and speaking with ill-suppressed rage. "Who is she, that she should refuse him? That little, contemptible child! That nobody! I tell you, she would not dare refuse him if she asked her! It would be too great an honour for her."

She stops. Her fingers tighten on her gown. Then, as suddenly as it grew, her ungovernable fit of anger seems to die checked, killed by her own will. She sinks into the chair behind her, and looks deliberately at Margaret with an air that, if not altogether smiling, is certainly altogether calm. It must have cost her a good deal to do it.

"It is beyond argument," says she; "he will not ask her."

"He shall," says Lady Rylton in a low tone.

Margaret rises, and moves slowly towards one of the open windows; she pauses there a moment, then steps out on to the balcony, and so escapes. These incessant discussions are abhorrent to her, and just now her heart is sad for the poor child who has been brought down here ostensibly for amusement, in reality for business. Of course, Maurice will not marry her—she knows Maurice, he is far above all that sort of thing; but the very attempt at the marriage seems to cover the poor child with insult. And she is such a pretty child.

At this moment the pretty child, with Randal Gower, comes round the corner; she has her skirt caught up at one side, and Miss Knollys can see it is full of broken biscuits. The pulling up of the skirt conduces a good deal to the showing of a lovely little foot and ankle, and Margaret, who has the word "hoyden" still ringing in her ears, and can see Lady Rylton's cold, aristocratic, disdainful face, wishes the girl had had the biscuit in a basket.

"Oh, here is Miss Knollys!" cries Tita, running to her. "We are going to feed the swans" (she looks back at her companion). "He has got some more biscuits in his pockets."

"It's quite true," says Mr. Gower; "I'm nothing but biscuits. Every pocket's full of 'em, and they've gone to dust. I tried to blow my nose a moment ago, but I couldn't. One can't blow one's nose in biscuit."

"Come with us, Miss Knollys—do," says Tita coaxingly.

"I can't. Not now. I can't," says Margaret, who is a little troubled at heart. "Go, dear child, and feed the swans, and take care of her, Randy—take care of her."

"I'll do my best," says Mr. Gower, with much solemnity; "but it's small—very small. As a rule, Miss Bolton takes care of me."

Margaret gives him a last admonitory glance and turns away. In truth, Mr. Gower is but a broken reed to lean upon.