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

she, gazing at him with earnest eyes. "Yes, I know I shall be happy with you." She is evidently comparing him most favourably with Uncle George. "And you will be fond of me, won't you? You will be good to me?"

"I will, so help me God!" says Rylton very solemnly.

To her it seems an oath of allegiance--kindly, tender, reassuring. To him it is a solemn abjuration of all his devotion to--the other.


CHAPTER X.

HOW MAURICE GIVES WAY TO TEMPER, AND HOW LADY RYLTON PLANTS A SHAFT OR TWO. AND HOW MARGARET SAYS A WORD IN SEASON, AND HOW IN RETURN COLONEL NEILSON SAYS A WORD TO HER.


Maurice goes straight to his mother's room, not from a sense of duty, but a desire to clinch the matter finally. Lady Rylton would be the last person to permit backsliding where her own interests were concerned, and perhaps---- He does not exactly say it to himself in so many words, but he feels a certain dread of the moment when he shall be alone--a prey to thought. What if he should regret the move he had taken, to the extent of wanting it undone? His step grows quicker as he approaches his mother's room. His interview with her is of the slightest--a bare declaration of the fact. She would have fallen upon his neck in the exuberance of her triumph and her satisfaction, but he coldly repulses her.

"My dear mother, why such enthusiasm over my engagement to a girl of whom you distinctly disapprove?"

"Disapprove! Of Tita! Dearest Maurice, what an idea!"

"We won't go into it," says Maurice, with a gesture of ill-suppressed disgust. "I know your opinion of her. I beg to say, however, I do not share it. Badly as I shall come out of this transaction, I should like you to remember that I both admire and like Miss Bolton."

"I know, dearest boy, I know," says Lady Rylton, in the tone one would use to an acute sufferer. "It is very noble of you, Maurice. It is a sacrifice. I felt sometimes I had no right to demand----"

"The sacrifice is hers," says he shortly, gloomily.

His eyes are bent upon the ground.

"Hers! That little upst---- that poor unsophisticated child! My dear Maurice, why run away with things? Of course she was charmed, enchanted, _flattered_, in that you admired her so much as to ask her to be your wife."

"She was not," says Maurice flatly.

"Exactly what I should have expected from such a----" Lady Rylton checks herself in her fury. "From such an innocent creature," substitutes she. "But for all that, I shall consider how great is the sacrifice you have made, Maurice--how you have given up the happiness of your life to preserve the old name."

"I am beginning to get tired of the old name," says Maurice slowly. "Its nobility seems to me to be on the decline."

"Oh, not now," says Lady Rylton, who does not understand him, who could not, if she tried, fathom the depths of self-contempt that he endures, when he thinks of this evening's work, of his permitting this child to marry him, and give him her wealth--for nothing--nothing! What _can_ he give her in return? An old name. She had not seemed to care for that--to know the importance of it. "Now it will rise again, and at all events, Maurice, you have saved the old home!"

"True!" says he. "For you."

"For _me?_ Oh, dearest boy, what _can_ you mean?"

"Yes, for you only. She refuses to live here with you."

The very disquietude of his soul has driven him into this mad avowal. Looking at her with dull eyes and lowering brows, he tells himself--in this, one of the saddest hours of his life--that he hates the mother who bore him. Her delight in his engagement is odious to him; it seems to fan his rage against her. What has she ever done for him, what sympathy has she ever shown? She has embittered the life of the woman he loves; she has insulted the woman he is to marry. What consideration does she deserve at his hands?

"She refuses to live here with _me?"_ says Lady Rylton. "And why, may I ask?"

Her small, pale face flushes angrily.

"I don't know, really; you should be the one to know."

His tone is so cold, so uncompromising, that she decides on coming to terms for the present. Afterwards, when that girl has married him, she will remember to some purpose, so far as _she_ is concerned. There is a little tale that she can tell her.

"Dearest Maurice, how could I? I always fancied I treated her with the utmost kindness. But why should we worry about it? No doubt it was a mere girlish fancy, a distaste," playfully, "to the terrible mamma-in-law of fiction. Such monsters do not exist now. She will learn that by degrees. You will bring her to stay with me for awhile on your return from your honeymoon?"

"If you desire it."

"Of course I shall desire it; then she and I will become great friends. You are going? My love to your little _fiancée_, and say I am so charmed, so delighted! And tell her I should like her to come to me for a quiet little talk in the morning about eleven; I shall have no one with me then but Marian."

"She shall not come to you, then," says Rylton. A dark red mounts to his brow. What a diabolical thought--to receive those two together! "Do you _hear?"_ says he imperiously.

"Good heavens, yes!" says his mother, pretending prettily to cower before him. "What a tone! What a look! What have I done, then?"

"What devilish cruelty is in your heart I don't know," says he, his passion carrying him beyond all bounds; "but understand at once, I will not have Tita tortured."

Lady Rylton leans back in her chair and laughs.

"You would have made a good tragic actor," she says. "If this little plebeian throws you over after all, you should think of it. You remind me of your father when he was in his most amusing moods. There, go; kiss Tita for me." Rylton turns to the door, his very soul on fire with rage. Just as he goes out, she calls to him, with a little soft musical ripple of laughter. "By-the-bye, take care you do not kiss Marian instead," says she.


* * * * * *


He meets Margaret on his way downstairs. He had walked up and down the passages above, in the dim light, with a view to bringing himself back into a state of control, with so much success that, when he comes face to face with Miss Knollys, he seems to her as self-possessed as usual. He had seen her talking to Tita in the hall below, in a somewhat earnest manner, and had taken it for granted that Tita had told her of their engagement.

"Well," says he, stopping her.

"Well?" returns she, smiling.

"You have heard?"

"Of what? Anything new?" curiously. The very best women are curious.

"Of my engagement; surely she has told you?"

"She? Who? _Marian!"_

"No--_no!"_

Then the truth comes to her.

"Tita?" she says faintly.

He nods his head; words fail him.

"She told me nothing," says Margaret, recovering herself.

"Yet I saw you talking together just now."

"You did indeed."

"And she said nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Then what _were_ you talking about?"

"I was advising her to marry no man who did not love her."

"What an extraordinary piece of advice to give to a girl who, as far as you knew, was not going to be married at all! What led up to it?"

"Not Tita, certainly. It was I who led up to it."

"And why?"

"Do you think I have been blind and deaf, Maurice, during the past fortnight?" Miss Knollys almost compels his gaze. "If you are going to marry this young girl, _this child,_ I hope, I"--almost passionately--_"hope_ it will be for her good and yours."

"Margaret! What a tone! You mean something!"

"I do." Margaret's strong face lights up with honest anxiety. "I mean this!" She takes a step nearer him. "How is it between you and Marian?"

"Why, how has it been?" asks he, with affected lightness; but a change passes over his face.

"Oh, Maurice, take care!" says his cousin, laying her hand upon his arm.

"Well, if you must have it," says he, frowning, "all that is over."

He breaks away from her, frowning still.

It is quite plain to her that she has offended him. But even as he leaves her he looks back; a sort of grim smile illumines his face.

"I note that in your 'hoping' you have put Miss Bolton before me; that is as it should be. She is a sworn admirer of yours. Did you know it?"

"No. But she appeals to me--I don't know why--but I feel that I could love her," says Margaret, in short sentences as if thinking, and as if a little surprised at herself. Suddenly she breaks into a more immediate feeling. "Oh, Maurice, love her too! Try, _try_ to love her; she is so young. Her very _soul_ is in your keeping. Be good to her; she is a mere baby. If you neglect her, forget her----"

Maurice casts a queer look at her.

"'Is thy servant a dog?'" quotes he.


* * * * *


Margaret moves slowly away. She had, when Maurice met her, been bent on going upstairs to her books and her thoughts; but now she turns backward. She feels as if she wants something. Perhaps she finds it--unconsciously, however--when she stops before a tall, soldierly-looking man, who, seeing her, comes to meet her with evident pleasure.

"You look disturbed!" says Colonel Neilson.

He is, as I have said, a tall man, with a kindly face, and deep eyes of a dark colour. There is nothing very special about him; he is not, strictly speaking, handsome, yet he was, last season, one of the most popular men in town.

"Yes, and no," says Margaret. "My cousin has confided a sort of secret to me."

"A secret! I may not hear it, then?"

"Well, I don't know. It is, as I have hinted, a _sort_ of secret, not very much to be kept."

"I may hear it, then?"

"I suppose so. At all events," with a laugh, soft and silk, "I should like you to hear it, because I want your opinion. You will give it?"

"You know I will give you everything I have," says he.

"Oh no! you must not talk like that," says she. "Put all that on one side, and let me have you for my friend. I want one now--not for myself, but for another; for two others, in fact. You know how fond I am of Maurice, and lately I have contracted quite a romantic, for _me"_--she pauses and laughs--"well, quite a romantic affection, for a little girl staying here with my aunt. You know who I mean--Tita Bolton."

"A charming child?"

"I am so glad you like her! But, as you say, she is a mere child; and Maurice has proposed to her, and she has accepted him, and I am curious about her future."

"Hers only?"