The Hoyden

by Duchess

CHAPTER IV.

HOW TITA'S SOUL AT LAST IS STIRRED; AND HOW HER HAPPINESS IS THREATENED AND HERSELF SET AT NAUGHT; AND HOW MINNIE HESCOTT SPEAKS.

"Such a day to go out on the lake!" says Mrs. Bethune, with a contemptuous curve of her lip. "Really, that old woman must be as mad as she is disagreeable."

"Well, she could hardly be more so," says Mrs. Chichester.

They are all in the oriel chamber, the windows of which look upon the lake, and now they can see Randall and Miss Gower rowing apparently in the utmost peace across it.

"She has a perfect passion for boating," says Margaret.

"So I should say. I dare say it seems to her pretty and idyllic."

"Her passions ought to be at a low ebb by this time," says Mrs. Bethune with a sneer. She has suffered many things at the old maid's hands.

"Well, let us pray Randal will bring her home in safety," says Tita, laughing.

"My dear Lady Rylton!"

"Heavens—what a prayer!" exclaims Mrs. Chichester.

"Let us say it backwards," says captain Marryatt, which is considered such a wonderful departure for him, such a stroke of wit on his part, that everyone laughs in the most encouraging fashion.

"You'll be a reigning wit yet, if you don't look out," says Mrs.
Chichester.

"As you are a reigning toast," responds he, quite fired by the late ovation.

"Oh, goodness!" says Mrs. Chichester, shrugging up her thin shoulders and casting a queer glance round her from under her brows; "let us take him away quickly, before he cuts himself with his own smartness."

"Yes. Come down to the library, it's warmer there," says Tita. She leads the way to the door, and when at it looks back over her shoulder at her husband. "Are you coming, Maurice?"

"In a moment or two. I have a few letters to write first."

"And you?" says Tita, looking at Mrs. Bethune.

"I, too, have some letters to write," returns Marian.

Her tone is quite ordinary, but to the young girl gazing at her there seems something defiant in her eyes and her smile. What is it in the smile—a sort of hateful amusement.

Tita leaves the room. She goes out and down the spiral stairs quite collectedly, to all appearance, yet she is not aware for a moment that Margaret's hand is on her arm. For the first time—the first time in all her young and most innocent life—a sin has touched her soul. She has learned to hate—she as yet does not know why—but she knows she hates Marian Bethune.

As the door closes behind her and her guests, Rylton turns on
Marian.

"Why did you say that? Why didn't you go?" says he.

His face is white as death. He cannot account to himself for the agitation that is consuming him.

"Why should I not say what is the truth?" returns she, her beautiful daring eyes full on his. "Why should I go? Does Lady Rylton demand that all her guests should be at her beck and call, morning, noon, and night?"

"She demands nothing," says Rylton.

The terrible truth of what he is saying goes home to him. What has she ever demanded, that poor child, who has given him her fortune, her life? Her little, sweet, half-pathetic face as she looked back at him from the doorway is before him. Her face is often before him now.

"She must be a fool, then," says Marian insolently. She takes a step nearer to him. "Don't let us talk of her. What is she to us?" cries she, in a low fierce tone that speaks of words held back for many days, words that have been scorching her, and must find sound at last. "Maurice! Maurice! how long is this to go on!" She takes a step nearer to him, and then, as if it is impossible to her to hold back any longer, she flings herself suddenly into his arms. "Maurice, speak to me. My love! My life!" Her words are low, dispirited, broken by little sobs.

Rylton presses her to him. It is an involuntary movement, the action of one who would succour another when in trouble. His face has lost all colour. He is indeed as white as death. He holds her. His arms are round her—round this woman he has loved so long; it is—it must be a supreme moment—and yet—

He lays his hands upon her arms, and putting her gently back from him gazes into her drenched eyes. Those eyes so dear, so lustrous. How often has he looked into them, when,

"Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again!"

"Marian," says he. His tone is tenderness itself, yet there is now a sudden strength in it that astonishes him. She had had all the strength in those old days. She had dominated him, subduing him by her beauty, her charm. The charm is there still—he knows that as he gazes into her deep eyes, but is it quite as potent? A year ago would she have been standing before him, looking at him as she is looking now with this ineffable passion in her gaze whilst he stood too? No. He would have been at her feet, her slave, her lover, to do with as she would. "Marian, is this wise?"

"Ah! one moment!" entreats she sadly. "It is so seldom I can see you alone, and this blessed chance—will you refuse it? You saw how I dared everything. How I even risked her suspicion. It was because I felt I should see—should speak with you again."

"You should consider yourself," says he in a dull tone.

He hardly understands himself. Where is the old, wild longing to be with her, when others are away, to hold her in his arms? To kiss her lips—dear willing lips?

"What do I care about myself?" returns she vehemently. Her passion has so carried her with it, that she has failed to see the new wonder in his air, the chill, the lack of warmth, the secret questioning. "Ah, Maurice, forgive me! It is so like you to think of me before yourself. And I know one must think. But will it be always so? Is there no chance, no hope—of freedom for you and me? You are rich now, and if—if——"

"Don't," says he, in a choked tone.

He almost pushes her from him, but she clings to him.

"I know—I know," says she. "It is a dishonourable thought, but thoughts will come. And you——" She catches him by both arms, and swaying her little body a little, compels his gaze to meet hers. "They come to you, too," cries she in a low tone, soft as velvet, but quick with fervour. "You, too, long for freedom. Do I not know you, Maurice? Do I not believe in you? You are mine—mine! Oh how I honour you, for your honour to her! I think you are the one good man I ever met. If I loved you before your marriage, I love you a thousand times better since. You are mine, and I am yours. And we must wait—wait—but not for long. That girl——"

He releases himself from her by a quick, almost infuriated gesture. At the very instant of his doing so the sound of footsteps coming along the corridor without can be heard. Mrs. Bethune steps quickly to a side-door, and passes noiselessly into a passage that leads her to a back staircase. As she runs along it softly, noiselessly, a great swell of delight lifts her bosom.

He loves her. He loves her still. He had not repulsed her when she had flung herself into his embrace, and this last moment when he had flung her out of it, that spoke more than all. He had heard those coming footsteps. He had thought of her—her reputation. That was dear to him. She gains her own room by a circuitous round, breathless, unseen, secure in her belief of her power over him. The insatiable vanity of the woman had prevented her from reading between the lines.

Rylton, detesting himself for the necessity for deception, has just seated himself at a writing-table, when Minnie Hescott enters the room. That astute young woman refrains from a glance round the room.

"Still writing?" says she.

She had told herself when she escaped from the others that she would do a good turn to Tita. She decided upon not caring what Rylton would think of her. Men were more easily appeased than women. She would square him later on, even if her plain speaking offended him now; and, at all events, Tita would be on her side—would acknowledge she had meant kindly towards her, and even if all failed still something would be gained. She would have "been even" with Mrs. Bethune.

Miss Hescott's vocabulary is filled with choice sayings, expressive if scarcely elegant. Beyond her dislike to Mrs. Bethune, personally—she might have conquered that—Minnie is clever—there is always the fact that Mrs. Bethune is poor, and poor people, as Minnie has learned through a hard philosophy, are never of any use at all. Mrs. Bethune, therefore, could never advance her one inch on the road to social success; whereas Tita, though she is a mere nobody in herself, and not of half as good birth as Mrs. Bethune, can be of the utmost use as a propeller.

Tita, by happy circumstances, is the wife of a real live Baronet, and Tita is her cousin. Tita has money, and is very likely to go to town every year in the season, and what more likely than that Tita should take her (Minnie) under her wing next season, present her and marry her? Delightful prospect. Her step is quite buoyant as she approaches Rylton and says:

"Still writing?"

"Yes," returns Rylton leisurely, to whom Minnie is not dear.

"I'm sorry. I wanted to say something to you," says Minnie, who has decided on adopting the unadorned style of conversation, that belongs as a rule to the young—the unsophisticated.

"If I can be of the slightest use to you," says Rylton, wheeling round on his chair, "I shall be delighted." He had knocked off the blotting paper as he turned, and now stoops to pick it up, a moment that Minnie takes to see that he has no letter half begun before him, and no letter finished either, as the rack on the side of the wall testifies. Minnie would have done well as a female detective!

"Oh no—no. On the contrary, I wanted to be of use to you."

"To me?"

"Yes. You mustn't be angry with me," says Minnie, still with the air of the ingénue full about her; "but I felt ever since the night before last that I should speak to you."

"The night before last!"

Rylton's astonishment is so immense that he can do nothing but repeat her words. And now it must be told that Minnie, who had seen that vindictive look on Mrs. Bethune's face as she went down the terrace steps on the night of Lady Warbeck's dance, and had augured ill from it for Tita and her brother, had cross-examined Tom very cleverly, and had elicited from him the fact that he had heard footsteps behind the arbour where he and somebody—he refused to give the name—had sat that night, and that he—Tom—had glanced round, and had seen and known, but that he had said nothing of it to his companion. A mutual hatred for Mrs. Bethune, born in the breast of Tom as well as in his sister, had alone compelled Tom to declare even this much. Minnie had probed and probed about his companion, as to who she was, but Tom would not speak. Yet he might as well have spoken. Minnie knew!

"Yes, that night at Lady Warbeck's. I know you will think me horrid to say what I am going to say, and really there is nothing—only—I am so fond of Tita."

"It is not horrid of you to say that," says Rylton, smiling.

"No. I know that. But that isn't all. I—am afraid Tita has an enemy in this house."

"Impossible," says Rylton.

He rises, smiling always, but as if to put a termination to the interview.

"No, but listen," says Minnie, who, now she has entered upon her plan, would be difficult to beat. "Do you remember when you and Mrs. Bethune were standing on the balcony at Warbeck Towers—that night?"

Rylton starts, but in a second collects himself.

"Yes," returns he calmly.

He feels it would be madness to deny it.

"Very well," says Minnie, "I was there too, and I went down the steps—to the garden. Your wife went down before me."

Rylton grows suddenly interested. He had seen Minnie go down those steps—but the other!

"Then?" asks he; his tone is breathless.

"Oh, yes—just then," says Minnie, "and that is what I wanted to talk to you about. You and Mrs. Bethune were on the balcony above, and Tita passed just beneath, and I saw Mrs. Bethune lean over for a second as it were—it seemed to me a most evil second, and she saw Tita—and her eyes!" Minnie pauses. "Her eyes were awful! I felt frightened for Tita."

"You mean to tell me that Mrs. Bethune saw Tita that night passing beneath the balcony?"

The memory of his bet with Marian, that strange bet, so strangely begun, comes back to him—and other things too! He loses himself a little. Once again he is back on that balcony; the lights are low, the stars are over his head. Marian is whispering to him, and all at once she grows silent. He remembers it; she takes a step forward. He remembers that too—a step as though she would have checked something, and then thought better of it.

Is this girl speaking the truth? Had Marian seen and then made her bet, and then deliberately drawn him step by step to that accursed arbour? And all so quietly—so secretly—without a thought of pity, of remorse!

No, it is not true! This girl is false—— And yet—that quick step Marian had taken; it had somehow, in some queer way, planted itself upon his memory.

Had she seen Tita go by with Hescott? She had called it a fair bet! Was it fair? Was there any truth anywhere? If she had seen them—if she had deliberately led him to spy upon them——

A very rage of anger swells up within his heart, and with it a first doubt—a first suspicion of the honour of her on whom he had set his soul! Perhaps the ground was ready for the sowing.

"Saw her? Yes, indeed," says Minnie, still with the air of childish candour. "It was because I saw her that I was so frightened about Tita. Do you know, Sir Maurice,"—most ingenuously this—"I don't think Mrs. Bethune likes Tita."

"Why should you suppose such a thing?" says Rylton. His face is dark and lowering. "Tita seems to me to be a person impossible to dislike."

"Ah, that is what I think," says Minnie. "And it made me the more surprised that Mrs. Bethune should look at her so unkindly. Well," smiling very naturally and pleasantly, "I suppose there is nothing in it. It was only my love for Tita that made me come and tell you what was troubling me."

"Why not tell Tita?"

"Ah, Tita is a little angel," says Minnie Hescott. "I might as well speak to the winds as to her. I tried to tell her, you know, and——"

"And——"

He looked up eagerly.

"And she wouldn't listen. I tell you she is an angel," says Minnie, laughing. She stops. "I suppose it is all nonsense—all my own folly; but I am so fond of Tita, that I felt terrified when I saw Mrs. Bethune look so unkindly at her on the balcony."

"You are sure you were not dreaming?" says Rylton, making an effort, and growing careless once again in his manner.

Minnie Hescott smiles too.

"I never dream," says she.