I will not attempt to describe the feelings of Harry Thornleigh, when he found that Margaret had gone away, and gone with Edgar. He came back to Lady Mary raving and white with rage, to pour out upon her the first outburst of his passion.
“The villain!—the traitor!—the low, sneaking rascal!” Harry cried, foaming. “He has made a catspaw of Gussy and a fool of me. We might have known it was all a lie and pretence. He has carried her off under our very eyes.”
Even Lady Mary was staggered, strong as was her faith in Edgar; and Harry left her doubtful, and not knowing what to make of so strange a story, and rushed up to town, to carry war and devastation into his innocent family. He went to Berkeley Square, and flung open the door of the morning-room, where they were all seated, and threw himself among them like a thunderbolt. Gussy had received Edgar’s note a little while before, and she had been musing over it, pensive, not quite happy, not quite pleased, and saying to herself how very wrong and how very foolish she was. Of course, if his old mother were dying, he must go to her—he had no choice; but Gussy, after waiting so long for him, and proving herself so exceptionally faithful, felt that she had a certain right to Edgar’s company now, and to have him by her side, all the more that Lady Augusta had protested that she did not think it would be right to permit it in the unsettled state of his circumstances, and of the engagement generally. To have your mother hesitate, and declare that she does not think she ought to admit him, and then to have your lover abstain from asking admission, is hard upon a girl. Lord Granton (though, to be sure, he was a very young man, with nothing to do) was dangling constantly about little Mary; and Gussy felt that Edgar’s many businesses, which led him here, and led him there, altogether out of her way, were inopportune, to say the least.
Harry assailed his mother fiercely, without breath or pause. He accused her of sending “that fellow” down to Tottenham’s, on purpose to interfere with him, to be a spy upon him, to ruin all his hopes.
“I have seen a change since ever he came!” he cried wildly. “If it is your doing, mother, I will never forgive you! Don’t think I am the sort of man to take such a thing without resenting it! When you see me going to the devil, you will know whose fault it is. Her fault?—no, she has been deceived. You have sent that fellow down upon her with his devilish tongue, to persuade her and delude her. It is he that has taken her away. No, it is not her fault, it is your fault!” cried Harry. “I should have grown a good man. I should have given up everything she did not like; and now you have made up some devilish conspiracy, and you have taken her away.”
“Harry, do you remember that you are talking to your mother?” cried Lady Augusta, with trembling lips.
“My mother! A mother helps one, loves one, makes things easy for one!” he cried. “That’s the ordinary view. Excuses you, and does her best for you, not her worst; when you take up your rôle as you ought, I’ll take mine. But since you’ve set your mind on thwarting, deceiving, injuring me in my best hopes!” cried Harry, white with rage, “stealing from me the blessing I had almost got, that I would have got, had you stopped your d——d interference!”
His voice broke here; he had not meant to go so far. As a gentleman at least, he ought, he knew, to use no oath to ladies; but poor Harry was beside himself. He stopped short, half-appalled, half-satisfied that he had spoken his mind.
“Harry, how dare you?” cried Gussy, facing him. “Do you not see how you are wounding mamma? Has there ever been a time when she has not stood up for you? And now because she is grieved to think that you are going to ruin yourself, unwilling that you should throw yourself away——”
“All this comes beautifully from you!” cried Harry, with a sneer—“you who have never thought of throwing yourself away. But I am sorry for you, Gussy. I don’t triumph over you. You have been taken in, poor girl, the worst of the two!”