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

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"You have a high opinion of me!" says Maurice. "That I acknowledge. But, regarding me as you do, I wonder you ever had the courage to marry me!"

"Well, even _you_ are better than Uncle George," says she. "Now, go on; is there anyone else? The Heriots! Who are they? I heard you speak of them."

"Ordinary people; but he shoots. He is a first-class shot."

"Heriot! It reminds me----" Tita grows silent a moment, and now a little flood of colour warms her face. "I have someone I want to ask, after all," cries she. "A cousin--Tom Hescott."

"A cousin?"

"Yes. And he has a sister--Minnie Hescott. I should like to ask them both." She looks at him. "They are quite presentable," says she whimsically.

"Your cousins should be, naturally," says he.

Yet his heart sinks. What sort of people are these Hescotts?

"I have not seen them for years," says Tita--"never since I lived with my father. Tom used to be with us always then, but he went abroad."

"To Australia?"

"Oh no--to Rome! To Rome first, at all events; he was going to India after that."

"For----"

"Nothing--nothing at all. Just to see the world!"

"He must have had a good deal of money!"

"More than was good for him, I often heard. But I _did_ like Tom; and I heard he was in town last week, and Minnie with him, and I should like very much indeed to ask them here."

"Well, scribble down their names."

"I dare say they won't come," says Tita, writing.

"Why?"

"Oh, because they know such lots of people. However, I'll try them, any way." She flings down her pencil. "There, that's done; and now I shall go and have a ride before luncheon."

"You have been riding all the morning!"

"Yes."

"Do you never get tired?"

"Never! Come and see if I do."

"Well, I'll come," says Rylton.

_"Really!"_ cries Tita; her eyes grow very bright. "You mean it?"

"Certainly I do. It is my place, you know, to see that you don't overdo it."

"Oh, how delightful!" says she, clasping her hands. "I hate riding alone. We'll go right over the downs, and back of Scart Hill, and so home. Come on--come on," running out of the room; "don't be a minute dressing."


CHAPTER XVI.

HOW A DULL MORNING GIVES BIRTH TO A STRANGE AFTERNOON. AND HOW RYLTON'S EYES ARE WIDENED BY A FRIEND.


"Good old day!" says Mrs. Chichester disgustedly. She is sitting near the window in the small drawing-room at Oakdean, watching the raindrops race each other down the panes.

"What's the matter with it?" asks Mr. Gower, who is standing beside her, much to the annoyance of Captain Marryatt, who is anxious to engage her for some waltzes at the dance old Lady Warbeck is giving in the near future.

"What _isn't_ the matter with it?" asks Mrs. Chichester, turning her thin shoulders, that always have some queer sort of fascination in them, on Gower. She gives him a glance out of her blue-green eyes. She is enjoying herself immensely, in spite of the day, being quite alive to the fact that Captain Marryatt is growing desperate, and that old Miss Gower, whom Tita has insisted on asking to her house party, is thinking dark things of her from the ottoman over there.

"What's it good for, any way?"

"For the ducks," says Mr. Gower, who is always there. An answer to any question under the sun comes as naturally to him as sighing to the sad.

"Oh, well, I'm not a duck," says she prettily; whereupon Mr. Gower whispers something to her that makes her laugh, and drives Captain Marryatt to frenzy.

He comes forward.

"Lady Rylton is talking of getting up something to pass the time;" says he, regarding Mrs. Chichester with a frowning brow--a contortion that fills that frivolous young woman's breast with pure joy.

"May the heavens be her bed!" says Mr. Gower, who has spent some years in Ireland, and has succeeded in studying the lower orders with immense advantage to himself, but not very much to others. He has, at all events, carried off from them a good deal of the pleasant small-talk, whereas they had only carried off from him a wild wonder as to what he was and where born, and whether he ought or ought not to be inside a lunatic asylum. They had carried off also, I am bound to add, a considerable amount of shillings. "Lady Rylton!" to Tita, who has just come up, "is this a reality or a mere snare? Did you say you thought you could put us successfully through this afternoon without reducing us to the necessity of coming to bloodshed?" Here he looks, first at Captain Marryatt, who providentially does not see the glance, and then at Mrs. Chichester, who laughs.

"I'm not sure. I haven't quite thought it out," says Tita. "What would _you_ suggest, Margaret?" to Miss Knollys. "Or you, Tom?" to a tall young man who has followed in her quick little progress across the room.

He is her cousin, Tom Hescott. He is so very much taller than she is, that she has to look up at him--the top of her head coming barely to a level with his shoulder. She smiles as she asks her question, and the cousin smiles back at her. It suddenly occurs to Sir Maurice, who has strolled into the room (and in answer to a glance from Mrs. Bethune is going to where she stands), that Tom Hescott is extraordinarily handsome.

And not handsome in any common way, either. If his father had been a duke, he could not have shown more breeding in look and gesture and voice. The fact that "Uncle Joe," the sugar merchant, _was_ his actual father, does not do away with his charm; and his sister, Minnie Hescott, is almost as handsome as he is! All at once Rylton seems to remember what his wife had said to him a few weeks ago, when they were discussing the question of their guests. She had told him he need not be afraid of her relations; they were presentable enough, or something like that. Looking at Tom Hescott at this moment, Sir Maurice tells himself, with a grim smile, that he is, perhaps, a little _too_ presentable--a sort of man that women always smile upon. His grim smile fades into a distinct frown as he watches Tita smiling now on the too presentable cousin.

"What is it?" asks Mrs. Bethune, making room for him in the recess of the window that is so cosily cushioned. "The cousin?"

"What cousin?" demands Sir Maurice, making a bad fight, however; his glance is still concentrated on the upper part of the room.

"Why, _her_ cousin," says Mrs. Bethune, laughing. She is looking younger than ever and radiant. She is looking, indeed, beautiful. There is not a woman in the room to compare with her; and few in all England outside it.

The past week has opened out to her a little path that she feels she may tread with light feet. The cousin, the handsome, the admirable cousin! What a chance he affords for--vengeance! vengeance on that little fool over there, who has _dared_ to step in and rob her--Marian Bethune--of her prey!

"Haven't you noticed?" says she, laughing lightly, and bending so close to Rylton as almost to touch his ear with her lips. "No? Oh, silly boy!"

"What do you mean?" asks Rylton a little warmly.

"And after so many days! Why, we _all_ have guessed it long ago."

"I'm not good at conundrums," coldly.

"But this is such an easy one. Why, the handsome cousin is in love with the charming little wife, that is all."

"You say everyone has been talking about it," says Rylton. His manner is so strange, so unpleasant, that Marian takes warning.

"Ah! That was an exaggeration. One _does_ talk much folly, you know. No--no! It was I only who said it--at least"--hesitating--"I think so." She pauses to let her hesitation sink in, and to be as fatal as it can be. "But you know I have always your interests at heart, and so I see things that, perhaps, others do not see."

"One may see more than----"

"True--true; and of course I am wrong. No doubt I imagined it all. But, even if it should be so," laughing and patting his arm softly, "who need wonder? Your wife is so pretty--those little things often _are_ pretty--and he is her cousin--they grew up together, in a sense."

"No, I think not."

"At all events, they were much together when she was growing from child to girl. And old associations--they----" She stops as if some dart has struck her. Rylton looks at her.

"Are you ill?" says he sharply. "You look pale."

"Nothing, nothing." She recovers herself and smiles at him, but her face is still white. "A thought, a mere thought--it cannot be only Tita and her cousin who have old associations, who have--_memories."_

Her eyes are full of tears. She leans toward him. This time her lips _do_ touch him--softly her lips touch his cheek. The curtains hide them.

"Have _you_ no memories?" says she.

"Marian! This is madness," says Rylton, turning suddenly to her. In a sense, though without a gesture, he repulses her. She looks back at him; rage is in her heart at first, but, seeing him as he is, rage gives place to triumph. He is actually livid. She has moved him, then. She still has power over him. Oh for time, time only! And he will be hers again, soul and body, and that small supplanter shall be lowered to the very dust!


* * * * *


"Oh, how delightful! The very thing," says Mrs. Chichester, clapping her hands.

The conversation at the other end of the room is growing merrier; Tita, in the midst of a small group, has evidently been suggesting something in a most animated fashion.

"We should have to put all the things back," says Minnie Hescott, glancing round her at the small chairs and tables that abound.

"Not at all--not at all," says Tita gaily; "we could go into the smaller dancing-room and have it there."

"Oh, of course! Splendid idea!" says Minnie.

She is a tall, handsome young creature, standing fully five feet five in her dainty little black silk stockings. Her eyes are dark and almond-shaped like her brother's, and there is a little droop at the far corners of the lids that adds singularly to their beauty; it gives them softness. Perhaps this softness had not been altogether meant, for Mother Nature had certainly not added gentleness to the many gifts she had given Miss Hescott at her birth. Not that the girl is of a nature to be detested; it is only that she is strong, intolerant, and self-satisfied. She grates a little. Her yea is always yea, and her nay, nay. She would always prefer the oppressed to the oppressor, unless, perhaps, the oppressor might chance to be useful to herself. She likes useful people. Yet, with all this, she is of a merry nature, and very popular with most of her acquaintances. Friends, in the strictest sense, she has none. She doesn't permit herself such luxuries.

She had been at once attracted by Tita. Naturally Tita _would_ be useful to her, so she has adopted her on the spot. Baronets' wives are few and far