CHAPTER XII.
MISS HUNSDEN SAYS "NO."
Sir Everard found his mother primed and loaded; but she nursed her wrath throughout dinner, and it was not until they were in the drawing-room alone that she went off. He was so moodily distrait all through the meal that he never saw the volcano smoldering, and the Vesuvian eruption took him altogether by surprise.
"Your conduct has been disgraceful!" Lady Kingsland passionately cried—"unworthy of a man of honor! You pay Lady Louise every attention; you make love to her in the most prononcé manner, and at the eleventh hour you desert her for this forward little barbarian."
Sir Everard opened his eyes in cool surprise.
"My dear mother, you mistake," he said, with perfect sang froid.
"Lady Louise made love to me!"
"Everard!"
Her voice absolutely choked with rage.
"It sounds conceited and foppish, I know," pursued the young gentleman; "but you force me to it in self-defense. I never made love to Lady Louise, as Lady Louise can tell you, if you choose to ask."
"You never asked her in so many words, perhaps, to be your wife. Short of that, you have left nothing undone."
Sir Everard thought of the dinner-party, of the moonlit balcony, of
George Grosvenor, and was guiltily silent.
"Providence must have sent him," he thought, "to save me in the last supreme moment. Pledged to Lady Louise, and madly in love with Harriet Hunsden, I should blow out my brains before sunset!"
"You are silent," pursued his mother. "Your guilty conscience will not let you answer. You told me yourself, only two days ago, that but for George Grosvenor you would have asked her to be your wife."
"Quite true," responded her son: "but who knows what a day may bring forth? Two days ago I was willing to marry Lady Louise—to ask her, at least. Now, not all the wealth of the Indies, not the crown of the world could tempt me."
"Good heavens!" cried my lady, goaded to the end of her patience; "only hear him! Do you mean to tell me, you absurd, mad-headed boy, that in one day you have fallen hopelessly in love with this hare-brained, masculine Harriet Hunsden?"
"I tell you nothing of the sort, madame; the inference is your own. But this I will say—I would rather marry Harriet Hunsden than any other woman under heaven! Let Lady Louise take George Grosvenor. He is in love with her, which I never was; and he has an earl's coronet in prospective, which I have not. As for me, I have done with this subject at once and forever. Even to you, my mother, I can not delegate my choice of a wife."
"I will never receive Harriet Hunsden!" Lady Kingsland passionately cried.
"Perhaps you will never have the opportunity. She may prefer to become mistress of Strathmore Castle. Lord Ernest is her most devoted adorer. I have not asked her yet. The chances are a thousand to one she will refuse when I do."
His mother laughed scornfully, but her eyes were ablaze.
"You mean to ask her, then?"
"Most assuredly."
She laughed again—a bitter, mirthless laugh.
"We go fast, my friend! And you have hardly known this divinity four-and-twenty hours."
"Love is not a plant of slow growth. Like Jonah's gourd, it springs up, fully matured, in an hour."
"Does it? My son is better versed in amatory floriculture than I am. But before you ask Miss Hunsden to become Lady Kingsland, had you not better inquire who her mother was?"
The baronet thought of the letter, and turned very pale.
"Her mother? I do not understand. What of her mother?"
"Only this"—Lady Kingsland arose as she spoke, her face deathly white, her pale eyes glittering—"the mother is a myth and a mystery. Report says Captain Hunsden was married in America—no one knows where—and America is a wide place. No one ever saw the wife; no one ever heard Miss Hunsden speak of her mother; no one ever heard of that mother's death. I leave Sir Everard Kingsland to draw his own inferences."
She swept from the room with a mighty rustle of silk. A dark figure crouching on the rug, with its ear to the keyhole, barely had time to whisk behind a tall Indian cabinet as the door opened.
It was Miss Sybilla Silver, who was already asserting her prerogative as amateur lady's-maid.
My lady shut herself up in her own room for the remainder of the evening, too angry and mortified for words to tell. It was the first quarrel she and her idolized son ever had, and the disappointment of all her ambitious hopes left her miserable enough.
But scarcely so miserable as Sir Everard. To be hopelessly in love on such short notice was bad enough; to have the dread of a rejection hanging over him was worse; but to have this dark mystery looming horribly in the horizon was worst of all.
His mother's insinuations alone would not have disturbed him; but those insinuations, taken in unison with Captain Hunsden's mysterious illness of the morning, drove him nearly wild.
"And I dare not even ask," he thought, "or set my doubts at rest. Any inquiry from me, before proposing, would be impertinent; and after proposing they would be too late. But one thing I am certain of—if I lose Harrie Hunsden, I shall go mad!"
While he tore up and down like a caged tiger, the door softly opened and his sister looked in.
"Alone, Everard?" she said, timidly, "I thought mamma was with you."
"Mamma has just gone to her room in a blessed temper," answered her brother, savagely. "Come in Milly, and help me in this horrible scrape, if you can."
"Is it something about—Miss Hunsden?" hesitatingly. "I thought mamma looked displeased at dinner."
"Displeased!" exclaimed the young man, with a short laugh; "that is a mild way of putting it. Mamma is inclined to play the Grand Mogul in my case as she did with you and poor Fred Douglas."
"Oh, brother!"
"Forgive me, Milly. I'm a brute and you're an angel, if there ever was one on earth! But I've been hectored and lectured, and badgered and bothered until I'm fairly beside myself. She wants me to marry Lady Louise, and I won't marry Lady Louise if she was the last woman alive. Milly, who was Miss Hunsden's mother?"
"Her mother? I'm sure I don't know. I was quite a little girl when Captain Hunsden was here before, and Harrie was a pretty little curly-haired fairy of three years. I remember her so well. Captain Hunsden dined here once or twice, and I recollect perfectly how gloomy and morose his manner was. I was quite frightened at him. You were at Eton then, you know."
"I know!" impatiently. "I wish to Heaven I had not been. Boy as I was, I should have learned something. Did you never hear the cause of the captain's gloom?"
"No; papa and mamma knew nothing, and Captain Hunsden kept his own secrets. They had heard of his marriage some four or five years before—a low marriage, it was rumored—an actress, or something equally objectionable. Little Harrie knew nothing—at three years it was hardly likely; but she never prattled of her mother as children of that age usually do. There is some mystery about Captain Hunsden's wife, and—pardon me—if you like Miss Hunsden, you ought to have it cleared up."
Everard laughed—a harsh, strident laugh.
"If I like Miss Hunsden, my dear little non-committal Milly. Am I to go to Hunsden Hall and say to its master, 'Look here, Captain Hunsden, give me proofs of your marriage—tell me all about your mysterious wife. You have a very handsome, high-spirited daughter, but before I commit myself by falling in love with her, I want to make sure there was no tarnish on the late Mrs. Hunsden's wedding-ring.' Captain Harold Hunsden is a proud man. How do you think he will like the style of that?"
Mildred stood silent, looking distressed.
"I wish I had married Lady Louise a month ago, and gone out of the country!" he burst out, vehemently. "I wish I had never seen this girl. She is everything that is objectionable—a half-civilized madcap—shrouded in mystery and poverty—danced over the world in a baggage-wagon. I have quarreled with my mother for the first time on her account. But I love her—I love her with all my heart—and I shall go mad or shoot myself if I don't make her my wife!"
He flung himself impetuously, face downward, on the sofa. Mildred stood pallid and scared in the middle of the floor. Once he lifted his head and looked at her.
"Go away, Milly!" he said, hoarsely. "I'm a savage to frighten you so!
Leave me; I shall be better alone."
And Mildred, not knowing what else to do, went.
Next morning, hours before Lady Kingsland was out of bed, Lady
Kingsland's son was galloping over the breezy hills and golden downs.
An hour's hard run, and he made straight for Hunsden Hall.
Miss Hunsden was taking a constitutional up and down the terrace overlooking the sea, with three big dogs. She turned round at Sir Everard's approach and greeted him quite cordially.
"Papa is so much better this morning," she said, "that he is coming down to breakfast. He is subject to these attacks, and they never last long. Any exciting news overthrows him altogether."
"That letter contained exciting news, then?" Sir Everard could not help saying.
"I presume so—I did not read it. How placid the sea looks this morning, aglitter in the sunlight. And yet I have been in the middle of the Atlantic when the waves ran mountains high."
"You are quite a heroine, Miss Hunsden, and a wonderful traveler for a seventeen-year-old young lady. You see, I know your age; but at seventeen a young lady does not mind, I believe. How long have you been in England this time?"
He spoke with careless adroitness; Miss Hunsden answered, frankly enough:
"Five months. You were abroad, I think, at the time."
"Yes. And now you have come for good, I hope—as if Miss Hunsden could come for anything else."
"It all depends on papa's health," replied Harriet, quietly ignoring the compliment. "I should like to stay, I confess. I am very, very fond of England."
"Of course—as you should be of your native place." He was firing nearer the target.
"England is not my native place," said Harriet, calmly. "I was born at
Gibraltar."
"At Gibraltar! You surprise me. Of course your mother was not a native of Gibraltar?"
"Of course not. My mother was an American—born and bred and married in New York."
"I suppose you scarcely remember her?"
"Scarcely," the young lady repeated, dryly; "since I never saw her."
"Indeed! She died then—"
"At my birth—yes. And now, Sir Everard"—the bright, clear eyes flashed suddenly full upon him—"is the catechism almost at an end?"
He absolutely recoiled. If ever guilt was written on a human face, it was readily written on his.
"Ah!" Miss Hunsden said, scornfully, "you thought I couldn't find you out—you thought I couldn't see your drift. Have a better opinion of my powers of penetration next time, Sir Everard. My poor father, impoverished in purse, broken in health, sensitive in spirit, chooses to hide his wounds—chooses not to wear his heart on his sleeve for the Devonshire daws to peck at—chooses never to speak of his lost wife—and, lo! all the gossips of the country are agape for the news. She was an actress, was she not, Sir Everard? And when I ride across the country, at the heels of the hounds, it is only the spangles, and glitter, and theater glare breaking out again. I could despise it in others, but I did think better things of the son of my father's oldest friend! Good-morning, Sir Everard."
She turned proudly away.
"Stay, Harriet—Miss Hunsden! Stop—for pity's sake, stop and hear me!
I have been presuming—impertinent. I have deserved your rebuke."
"You have," she said, haughtily.
"But I asked those questions because the nameless insinuations I heard drove me mad—because I love you, I worship you, with all my heart and soul."
Like an impetuous torrent the words burst out. He actually flung himself on his knees before her.
"My beautiful, queenly, glorious Harriet! I love you as man never loved woman before!"
Miss Hunsden stood aghast, staring, absolutely confounded. For one instant she stood thus; then all was forgotten in her sense of the ludicrous. She leaned against a tree, and set up a shout of laughter long and clear.
"Oh, good gracious!" cried Miss Hunsden, as soon as she was able to speak; "who ever heard the like of this? Sir Everard Kingsland, get up. I forgive you everything for this superhuman joke. I haven't had such a laugh for a month. For goodness' sake get up, and don't be a goose!"
The young baronet sprung to his feet, furious with mortification and rage.
"Miss Hunsden—"
"Oh, don't!" cried Harriet, in a second paroxysm. "Don't make me rupture an artery. Love me?—worship me? Why, you ridiculous thing! you haven't known me two days altogether!"
He turned away without speaking a word.
"And then you're engaged to Lady Louise! Every one says so, and I am sure it looks like it."
"I am not engaged to Lady Louise."
He said those words huskily, and he could say no more.
Miss Hunsden tried to look grave, but her mouth twitched. The sense of the ludicrous overcame her sense of decorum, and again she laughed until the tears stood in her eyes.
"Oh, I shall die!" in a faint whisper. "My sides ache. I beg your pardon, Sir Everard; but indeed I can not help it. It is so funny!"
"So I perceive. Good-morning, Miss Hunsden."
"And now you are angry. Why, Sir Everard!" catching for the first time a glimpse of his deathly white face, "I didn't think you felt like this. Oh! I beg your pardon with all my heart for laughing. I believe I should laugh on the scaffold. It's dreadfully vulgar, but it was born with me, I'm afraid. Did I gallop right into your heart's best affections at the fox-hunt? Why, I thought I shocked you dreadfully. I know I tried to. Won't you shake hands, Sir Everard, and part friends?"
"Miss Hunsden will always find me her friend if she ever needs one.
Farewell!"
Again he was turning away. He would not touch the proffered palm. He was so deathly white, and his voice shook so, that the hot tears rushed into the impetuous Harrie's eyes.
"I am so sorry," she said, with the simple humility of a little child. "Please forgive me, Sir Everard. I know it was horrid of me to laugh; but you don't really care for me, you know. You only think you do; and I—oh! I'm only a flighty little girl of seventeen, and I don't love anybody in the world but papa, and I never mean to be married—at least, not for ages to come. Do forgive me."
He bowed low, but he would neither answer nor take her hand. He was far too deeply hurt.
Before she could speak again he was gone.
"And he's as mad as a hatter!" said Harrie, ruefully. "Oh, dear, dear! what torments men are, and what a bore falling in love is! And I liked him, too, better than any of them, and thought we were going to be brothers in arms—Damon and—what's his name?—and all that sort of thing! It's of no use my ever hoping for a friend. I shall never have one in this lower world, for just so sure as I get to like a person, that person must go and fall in love with me, and then we quarrel and part. It's hard."
Miss Hunsden sighed deeply, and went into the house. And Sir Everard rode home as if the fiend was after him—like a man gone mad—flung the reins of the foaming horse to the astounded groom, rushed up to his room and locked himself in, and declined his luncheon and his dinner.
When he came down to breakfast next morning, with a white, wild face, and livid rings round his eyes, he electrified the family by his abrupt announcement:
"I start for Constantinople to-morrow. From thence I shall make a tour of the East. I will not return to England for the next three years."