Amethyst spoke to the old peasant woman, and asked her to fetch them soup or coffee. One trouble had succeeded another so rapidly that she seemed to have no feelings left.
The coffee was brought, and Lady Clyste revived a little as she drank it.
“So you had a great success in London? But why didn’t you marry that rich baronet? How pretty you are. Was there anybody else? I think you’d better have married him. Perhaps he wouldn’t have been such a jealous tyrant as Sir Edward. That was why I came away. There really wasn’t anything wrong; he had his amusements, and so had I.”
Amethyst could not answer, and suddenly Blanche changed her tone.
“But didn’t I hear that Oliver Carisbrooke was there? Oh, Amethyst, never you have anything to do with him. He was the ruin of me. There, he made me over head and ears in love with him, little, young thing that I was—and then he left me to bear all the blame. I declare, Amethyst, he planned it all, how I was to run away with him, and when he found out my mother’s money could be kept away from me, he threw me over. Oh, and he’s tried since. He’d make you believe anything. Being in love amuses him. He does that instead of gambling, or drinking, or being wicked like other men. He gets up an emotion! I hope you don’t like him.”
“No, I hate him,” said Amethyst under her breath.
“I want to hear all about you. Do you get on with my lady? I liked her—she was great fun. But when I was in trouble—ah, how she threw me over! And how she tried to cut me out! I could tell you—”
Amethyst started up, and went over to her father’s side. In that presence, with that other awful death-bed fresh in her mind, this idle trifling seemed the most dreadful of all the horrors which she had had to face.
She knelt down by her aunt’s side, and laid her face against her shoulder, the child-love of long ago coming to her help; while Miss Haredale pressed her close, and watched in silence.
The hours passed, and there was no arrival from Bordighera, and no message.