The Hoyden by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (best value ebook reader TXT) 📖

To ask her! To tempt this child----

"But," says he, looking away from her religiously, "would you marry a man who was not in love with _you?"_

"Not in love with me?"

"No. Not actually in love, but who admired--liked you?"

"But a man who wasn't in love with me wouldn't want to marry me," says Tita. "At least, that's what the novels say."

"He might," says Rylton deliberately. He leans forward. "Will you marry _me?"_

He almost laughs aloud as he makes his extraordinary proposal. If it fails, as it certainly _must_, he will throw up the remnant of his life here and go abroad. And, at all events, he can so far satisfy his mother as to assure her that he had placed his all at this little heiress's feet.

"You! You!" says she.

She stares at him.

"Even me! You said a moment ago that no man would ask you to marry him for any reason less than love; but I--I am not in love with you, and yet I ask you to marry me."

He pauses here, shocked at his own words, his brutal audacity.

"But why?" asks the girl slowly.

She is looking at him, deep inquiry and wonder in her great gray eyes.

"Because I am poor and you are rich," says he honestly. "Your money could redeem this old place, and I could give you a title--a small thing, no doubt."

"You could take me away from my uncle," says the girl thoughtfully. There is silence for awhile, and then--"I should be able to do as I liked," says she, as if communing with herself.

"That certainly," says Rylton, who feels as if all things should be allowed her at this juncture, considering how little it is in his power to allow.

"And you?" She looks up at him. _"You_ could do as you liked, too!"

"Thank you!" says Rylton.

He smiles in spite of himself, but the girl continues very grave.

"You say you have nothing," says she, "but this house?"

"It is useless arguing about it," returns Rylton; "this house will go shortly with all the rest. For myself, I don't care much really, but my mother--she would feel it. That's why I say you can help us, if you will."

"I should like to help _you!"_ says Tita, still very slowly.

She lays a stress upon the word "you."

"Well, will you trust yourself to me?"

"Trust myself!"

"Will you marry me? Consider how it is. I lay it all before you. I am not in love with you, and I have not a penny in the world. Literally, I have nothing."

"You have a mother," says Tita. "I," pathetically, "have nothing." It is plain to him that she had set great store by her dead father. "I have nothing, really. But you say this house must go?"

"Not if you will help me to keep it."

"I should not like to live here," says Tita, with some haste. And then in a low tone, "Your mother would live here?"

"Yes, certainly."

"Well, and I--I have been very unhappy with Uncle George," says she. Her air is so naïve that Rylton bursts out laughing. After all, the last thing he would desire either would be to live here with his mother.

"You would not have to make this place your home," says he. It had never been a home to him since his father's death. "You shall command me in this matter; I shall live at Oakdean if that is your desire." Indeed, it seems to him it would be a great relief to get away from the Hall, from his mother, from----

"To live at Oakdean!" The girl's face grows transfigured. She stares at him as if hardly seeing him, however; her thoughts have carried her back to past delights in which he has had no part. "To live there again!" She sighs quickly, excitedly. "You haven't seen it, you don't _know,"_ says she. "But it is the most beautiful place on earth." She puts out her hand and lays it on his. "If I marry you, will you promise that I shall live at Oakdean?"

"If you will do me the honour to marry me, you shall live just where you like," returns he. Indeed, to him it is now a matter of indifference where life may be dragged out to its weary end. But Tita fails to see the apathy in his manner.

"Then, it is settled," cries she joyfully. She clasps her hands. "Oh, how _good_ of you!" says she. "What a blessing I came here! Fancy getting rid of Uncle George and getting back to Oakdean all in one stroke!" Suddenly she looks round at him; there is almost terror in her gaze. "You are sure you _mean_ it?" says she.

"I mean it. But, Tita,"--he takes one of her hands and holds it between his own, and regards her with some anxiety--"have you thought it all out? I have told you the truth, you know. I have told you that I am not in love with you."

"In love with me! I'm sure I hope not," says Tita with a disgusted air. "Don't put yourself out about that. I should hate you if you were in love with me. Fancy a person following me about always, and saying silly things to me, and perhaps wanting to kiss me! You," anxiously looking at him with searching eyes, "you wouldn't want to kiss me, would you?"

She looks so pretty as she puts this startling question, that Rylton loses himself a little.

"I don't know."

"Then you had _better_ know, and at _once,"_ says Miss Bolton, with decision.

The whole affair seems to be trembling in the balance. A sense of amusement has most unfortunately seized on Rylton, and is shaking him to his very heart's core. To marry a girl who even objected to a kiss! It sounds like a French play. He subdues his untimely mirth by an effort, and says gravely, "How can I promise you that I shall never want to kiss you? I may grow very fond of you in time, and you--but, of course, that is far more improbable--may grow fond of me."

"Even so," begins she hotly. She pauses, however, as if some thought had struck her. "Well, let it stay so," says she. "If ever I do grow to like you as much as you fancy, why, then you may kiss me--sometimes."

"That's a bargain," says he.

Again he suppresses a desire to laugh. It seems to him that she is intensely interesting in some way.

"In the meantime," says he, with quite a polite air, "may I not kiss you now?"

"No!" says she. It is the lightest monosyllable, but fraught with much energy. She tilts the shoulder nearest to him, and peeps at him over it, with a half-merry little air.

She sets Rylton's mind at work. Is she only a silly charming child, or an embryo flirt of the first water? Whatever she is, at all events, she is very new, very fresh--an innovation! He continues to look at her.

"Really no?" questions he.

She nods her head.

"And yet you have said 'Yes' to everything else?"

She nods her head again. She nods it even twice.

"Yes, I shall marry you," says she.

"I may tell my mother?"

Miss Bolton sits up. A little troubled expression grows within her eyes.

"Oh! must you?" cried she. "She _will_ be mad. She won't let you marry me--I know she won't. She--hates me."

"My dear child, why?" Rylton's tone is shocked. The very truth in her declaration makes it the more shocking. And how does she know? His mother has been sweetness itself to her _before_ the curtain.

"Never mind, I know," says Tita. "I feel things. They come to me. I don't blame her. I'm sure I'm often horrid. I know that, when I look at other people. When I look at----"

She pauses.

"Look at whom?"

"At your cousin."

"My cousin!"

"Yes! You love her, don't you?"

"Love her!" He has turned suddenly as pale as death. "What do you mean?" asks he in a low voice.

"I love her, any way," says Tita. "I think Miss Knollys is the nicest person in all the world."

"Oh, Margaret?" says he. He says it involuntarily. The relief is so great that it compels him to give himself away.

"Why, who else?" says Tita. "Who did _you_ think I meant?"

"Who _could_ I think?" says he, recovering. "Even now I am surprised. Margaret, though very superior in most ways, is not always beloved."

"But you love her?"

"Oh yes, _I_ do!"

"I am glad of that," says Tita. "Because I love her more than anyone I know. And I have been thinking"--she looks at him quickly--"I have been thinking that"--nervously--"that when I marry you, Miss Knollys will be my cousin, too, in a sort of way, and that perhaps she will let me call her by her name. Do you," anxiously, "think she will?"

"I know she will." His answer is terse. He has barely yet recovered from the shock she had innocently given him.

"And your mother?" asks she, going back to the first question. "Do you think she will like you to marry me? Oh, do persuade her!"

"Make no mistake about my mother, Tita; she will receive you with open arms." He feels as if he were lying when he says this, yet is it not the truth? "She will be glad to receive you as a daughter."

"Will she? She doesn't look like it," says Tita, "not sometimes when I--_look back at her!"_

She rises, and makes a step towards the door of the conservatory that will lead her to the balcony, and so back to the dancing-room.

"Tita? Bear with my mother," says he gently, and in a low voice.

The girl turns to him, her whole young, generous heart in her voice. "Oh, I shall! I shall indeed!"

They traverse the long balcony in silence. The moon is flooding it with brilliant light. Here and there are groups in twos or threes--the twos are most popular. Just as they come to the entrance to the dancing-room, an alcove now deserted, Tita stops short and looks at him.

"You have promised to be kind to me!" says she, her voice trembling. For the first time the solemnity of this marriage arrangement of hers seems to have dawned upon her.

"I have," says Rylton earnestly.

"I am often very troublesome," says the poor child. "Uncle George says so. But you----" She hesitates, looking at him always. Her gaze is intense. He feels as if she is watching him, taking his mental temperature, as it were.

"Be kind to me in turn, Tita," says he. "Don't mistrust me. Try to _know_ that I like you."

"I wish," says she, a little forlornly, "that you could be fond of me. I'm--you don't know it--nobody knows it--but I'm often very lonely. I've been lonely all the time since pappy died."

"You shall never be lonely again," says Rylton. "I'm your friend from this hour--your friend for ever." He is touched to his very heart by her words and her small face. He stoops over her, and in spite of all that has been said against kissing, presses his lips to her soft cheek!

"Ah! You are kind. I _do_ like you," says