CHAPTER XXVII.
HOW SIR MAURICE FEELS UNEASY; AND HOW TITA, FOR ONCE, SHOWS HERSELF IMPLACABLE, AND REFUSES TO ACCEPT THE OVERTURES OF PEACE. AND HOW A LITTLE GOSSIP WARMS THE AIR.
It is the next day, and luncheon is well over, a somewhat badly-attended meal. But now all have managed to scramble downstairs, and the terrace is full of people who are saying "Good-morning" to each other at four o'clock in the afternoon.
"I never felt so tired in my life," says Mrs. Chichester, subsiding into a lounge chair, and trying to look as if her tea-gown isn't quite new. She has selected this evening in especial to spring it upon her women friends. As a rule people look dowdy after being up all night. Mrs. Chichester is determined she won't. She appears as fresh as the proverbial lark, in an exquisite arrangement of white silk and lace, and a heavenly temper. Her eyes are a little greener than usual.
"You don't look it," says Sir Maurice, who is standing near. He is wondering if Tita will come down. Tita has not put in an appearance all day. There had been no necessity to send an apology about her absence from breakfast, as almost every one of the women had taken that meal in her own room, but she had sent a word or two of regret about her inability to appear at luncheon, and, somehow, it has got into Sir Maurice's mind that perhaps she has made up her mind to stay in her own rooms all day. The thought makes him uneasy; but at this moment an end is put to it.
There is a little stir on his left, and, looking up, he sees Tita coming towards him down the terrace, stopping at every step to say a word to somebody. Now she stops as she comes to Margaret, and, laying her hands upon her shoulders, kisses her. She is dressed in the simplest little white frock in the world—a frock that makes her look even younger than usual. Her pretty short air is curling all over her head, and her dark gray eyes are very dark to-day. Do shadows lie in them, or has she been crying? It is Rylton who, watching her, asks himself this question, and as he asks it a strange pang shoots through his heart. Good heavens! why had he married her? To make her unhappy? He must have been possessed of the devil when he did that deed.
"How pretty you look, Tita!" Margaret whispers to her—Margaret, who has the gift of knowing how to soothe and please. She, too, has her misgivings about those lovely eyes; but all girls like to be told they are pretty, and Tita at once brightens.
"Am I? You are a goose, Madge!" But she presses Margaret's hands fondly for all that as she leaves her.
"Lady Rylton, come and sit here," cries Mrs. Chichester. "I have a lovely chair here for you. It's as soft as——" She cannot find a simile.
"As what?" asks Gower, who delights in annoying Mrs. Chichester.
"As you!" returns she, with a contemptuous glance that fills him with joy.
"Come," says Mrs. Chichester, calling again to Tita, and patting the chair in question. "You look tired. This is a perfect lounge."
"She looks as if she had been crying," says old Miss Gower, frowning at Tita over her glasses.
Again that strange pang contracts Rylton's heart. Has she been crying—and because of him?
"Looks! What are looks?" cries Mrs. Chichester gaily. "Looks always belie one."
"Certainly Lady Rylton's must belie her," says Mrs. Bethune, with a slow smile. "What cause has she for tears?"
"Not one!" declares Mrs. Chichester with decision. "It would be 'a sinner above all the Galileans' who would make Lady Rylton cry."
Her queer green eyes smile at Tita, who smiles back at her in her little sweet way, and then all at once bursts out laughing. It is a charming laugh, apparently full of mirth. There are only two present who do not quite believe in it, Margaret and Tom Hescott—but these two love her.
As for Rylton, some instinct causes him at this moment to look at Hescott. Tita's cousin is staring at her, his brows met, his lips somewhat compressed. He has forgotten that people may be staring at him in return, maybe measuring his thoughts on this or that. He has forgotten everything, indeed, except Tita's pale, laughing face and dancing, tear-stained eyes.
"Do you see a ghost?" whispers Mrs. Bethune to him, who has been watching him with cruel amusement.
"I don't know," he answers, hardly hearing her. Is not Tita to-day a ghost of her sweet self? And those words, "A sinner above all the Galileans!" Is there such a sinner?—and if so, surely it is——
Hescott lifts his eyes to meet those of Rylton. For a moment the two men regard each other steadily, and in that moment know that each hates the other with an undying intensity. Mrs. Bethune, who alone sees the working of the little tragedy, leans back in her chair, and lets her lids fall over her eyes. So still she lies that one might think her sleeping, but she is only battling with a fierce joy that threatens every moment to break its bonds, and declare her secret to the world!
During all this, conversation has been going on. Last night's sayings and doings are on the tapis, and everyone is giving his and her experiences. Just now the rather disreputable wife of a decidedly disreputable neighbour is lying on the social dissecting board.
"She gives herself away a good deal, I must say," says Mrs.
Chichester, who loves to hear her own voice, and who certainly
cannot be called ungenerous on her own account. "The way she dances!
And her frock! Good heavens!"
"I hear she makes all her own clothes," says Margaret, who perhaps hopes that this may be one small point in her favour.
Minnie Hescott makes a little moue.
"She may possibly make the things that cover her——"
"That what?" questions Mr. Gower, resting innocent eyes on hers, but Miss Hescott very properly refuses to hear him.
"It must be a matter for regret to all well-minded people," says Miss Gower, shaking her head until all her ringlets are set flying, "that when making that hideous dress, she did not add a yard or two, to——" She pauses.
"The what?" asks Mrs. Chichester, leaning forward.
"The bodice!" replies Miss Gower severely.
"Oh, auntie!" says her nephew, falling back in his chair and covering his face with his hands. "You shouldn't! You really shouldn't! It's—it's not delicate!"
"What do you mean, Randal?" demands his aunt, with a snort that would have done credit to a war-horse. "To whom are you addressing your remarks? Are you calling me indelicate?"
"Oh no—not for worlds!" says Mrs. Chichester, who is choking with laughter, and who only emerges from behind her fan to say this, and go back again. "Who could? But we feared—we thought you were going to say her skirt."
"It is my opinion that you fear nothing," says Miss Gower, with a withering glance at the fan. "And let me tell you that there are other people,"—with awful emphasis—"besides Mrs. Tyneway who would do well to put a tucker round their——"
"Ankles!" puts in Mrs. Chichester sweetly.
"No; their——"
"What was her dress made of?" breaks in Margaret hurriedly, who is afraid of their going too far with the irascible old lady.
"Goodness knows! She was all black and blue, at all events!"
"No! You don't say so?" exclaims Mr. Gower, with a tragic gesture.
"So her husband has been at it again!"
At this they all roar, as people will, at anything, when they have nothing else to do. Even Tita, who, though smiling always, is looking rather depressed, gives way to a merry little laugh. Hearing her, Margaret blesses Randal for his silly old joke.
"Oh, Randal! you are too stupid for anything," says Tita, showing all her pretty teeth.
"You have for once lighted on a solemn truth," puts in Randal's aunt grimly. "Let us hope you are getting sense."
"Or a wise tooth," says Colonel Neilson, with a friendly smile at Tita. "Lady Rylton is very nearly old enough to be thinking of that now."
"As for that wretched Mrs. Tyneway," says Miss Gower, taking no notice of him, "if her husband did so far take the law into his own hands as to make her black and blue, I, for one, should not blame him."
"That's funny!" says Mrs. Chichester, giving her a saucy little smile.
"What is funny, may I ask?"
"To hear you defend a man. I thought you despised them in a body."
"I have my own views about them," says Miss Gower, with a sniff.
"But I admit they have rights of their own."
"Fancy allowing a man to have rights nowadays!" cries Mrs. Chichester, uplifting her long arms as if in amazement. "Good heavens! What a wife you would have made! Rights?" She looks up suddenly at Captain Marryatt, who is, as usual, hanging over the back of her chair. "Do you think a man has any rights?"
"If you don't, I don't," returns that warrior, with much abasement and perhaps more sense than one would have expected from him.
"Good boy," says she, patting his hand with her fan.
"I suppose husbands have some rights, at all events?" says Sir
Maurice.
He says it quite lightly—quite debonnairly, yet he hardly knows why he says it. He had been looking at Tita, and suddenly she had looked back at him. There was something in the cold expression of her face, something defiant, that had driven him to make this foolish speech.
"Husbands? Pouf! They least of all," says Mrs. Chichester, who loves to shock her audience, and now finds Miss Gower ready to her hand.
"Where is your husband now, Mrs. Chichester?" asks Colonel Neilson, quite without malice prepense.
Margaret gives him a warning glance, just a little too late. Though indeed, after all, what is there to warn about Mrs. Chichester? She is only one of a thousand flighty young women one meets every day, and though Captain Marryatt's infatuation for her is beyond dispute, still, her infatuation for him has yet to be proved. Margaret had objected to her, in her own mind, as a companion for Tita—Tita, who seems too young to judge for herself in the matter of friendships.
"I don't know, I'm sure," returns Mrs. Chichester, lifting her shoulders. "Miss Gower will tell you; she knows everything. Miss Gower," raising her voice slightly, and compelling that terrible old woman to look at her, "will you tell Colonel Neilson where my husband is now?"
Poor Colonel Neilson! who is beginning to wish that the earth would open and swallow him up.
"It argues ill for you that you should be obliged to ask such a question," says Miss Gower, with a lowering eye.
"Does it? How dreadful!" says Mrs. Chichester. She looks immensely amused. "Do you know I heard the other day that he was married again! It can't be true—can it?"
She appeals once again to Colonel Neilson, as if enjoying his discomfiture, and being willing to add to it through pure mischief. However, she is disappointed this time. Colonel Neilson does not know what to do with her appeal to him, and remains discreetly silent. He can see she is not in earnest.
"At all events, if true," says Mrs. Chichester, looking now at Miss Gower, and speaking in a confidential tone, "I am sure John will let me know about it."
"John" is Major Chichester.
Marryatt is leaning now so far over her that he is whispering in her ear.
"Is this—is this true?" questions he, in low but vehement tones.
"It—it may be. Who can tell?" returns she, with beautiful hesitation.
She subsides once again behind the invaluable fan. To him she seems to be trembling. To Margaret, who is watching her angrily, she seems to be laughing.
"You have evidently great faith in your husband," says Miss Gower, with what she fondly believes to be the most artful sarcasm.
"Oh, I have—I have!" says Mrs. Chichester, clasping her hands in an enthusiastic fashion.
"And he in you, doubtless?"
"Oh, such faith!" with a considerable increase in the enthusiasm.
Miss Gower looks at her over her spectacles. It is an awful look.
"I shall pray for you to-night!" says she, in a piously vindictive tone.
"Oh, thanks! Thanks! How kind of you!" says Mrs. Chichester, with extreme pathos.
There is an explosion on her left. Mrs. Chichester looks mournfully in that direction to see the cause of it. There is only Mr. Gower to be seen! He, as usual, is misconducting himself to quite a remarkable degree. He is now, in fact, laughing so hard but so silently that the tears are running down his cheeks. To laugh out loud with his aunt listening, might mean the loss of seven hundred a year to him.
"What's the matter with you? Aren't you well?" asks Mrs. Chichester, in a loud voice, calculated to draw attention to him.
She feels that here is an opportunity given her to pay off old scores.
"Oh, don't," gasps Gower, frantically struggling still with his laughter. "If she hears you, she'll be down on me like a shot. As you are strong, be merciful!"
"Very well; remember you are in my debt," says she, who au fond is not ill-natured. At this moment Tita passes down the balcony to where her husband is standing on the top of the steps that lead to the gardens beneath.
As she draws closer to him, he fixes his eyes upon her as if to compel a glance from her in return; but Tita, who is accompanied by Minnie Hescott, does not so much as once let her gaze wander in his direction. She comes nearer—ever nearer, laughing and talking gaily, and passes him, still without recognition of any sort. As her skirt sweeps against him, he speaks.
"Are you going out, Tita?"
It is the first word that has passed between them since last night—since she left his room. A sudden angry determination to make her speak to him, induces him now to get before her, and bar her passage to the steps.
"Yes," returns she coldly, graciously, briefly.
She leans back a little, as if to catch up the tail of her white gown—in reality, to avoid looking at him.
"Just here there is shelter," says Rylton, speaking hurriedly, as if to gain time, and keep her from gliding past him. "But outside—— And you have a very thin frock on. Shall I get you a shawl?"
"No, thank you."
Her manner is still perfectly gracious, but still she refuses to look at him. The gathering up of her frock is evidently causing her a great deal of trouble.
"Shall I take you out some cushions, then?"
"No, thank you."
She has conquered the frock now, but still she does not look at him. In fact, she turns to Minnie, and, as though forgetful of his presence, murmurs some little thing or other to her.
"If you are going to the gardens," says Rylton, with Heaven knows what intention—perhaps a desire to show her how little he cares for her childish anger, perhaps to bring matters to their worst—to know what she means—"may I come with you?"
Tita gives him a glance—the fleetest; a smile—the briefest.
"No, thank you," says she, a faint emphasis upon the "No" being the only change in her even tone.
As she speaks she goes down the steps, Minnie Hescott following her.