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

her, "that it was _you_ who insisted on it."

"I shall remember," says Tita.

She turns and walks quickly on the path that leads to the house. Rylton turns to accompany her. But she, stopping short, looks up at him with a frowning brow.

"We have been talking about ways," says she. "This," with a little significant gesture to the right, "is my way."

He lifts his brows and laughs, a very sad and dismal laugh, however.

"And therefore not mine," says he. "You are right so far. I meant to go on to Upsall Farm, but I should like to see you safely back to the avenue, at all events--if you will allow me?"

_"No!"_ Tita has turned upon him like a little fury. All her rage and grief and misery has at last overpowered her. "I shall not allow you! I shall go nowhere with you! Our ways, as you say, are separate."

"As _I_ say----"

"It doesn't matter," says she vehemently; "words are nothing. There is only meaning left, and what _I_ mean is that I want never to go anywhere with you again."

"As you will, of course," says he, drawing back. Evidently it is to be war to the knife.

He could have laughed at himself as he leans back against a huge oak-tree and lights a cigar. Truly he is no Don Juan! The woman he loved did not love him to any measurable extent; the woman he married cares for him even less!

A very rage of anger against Tita is filling his breast, but now, standing here in the cold soft shades of the silent wood, his anger gives place to thought. By what right is he angry with her? By what right does he upbraid her? She knows all--everything. His _mother_ had seen to that. Yes, his wife knows----

And yet, after all, what is there to condemn him for? What man under heaven has been so scrupulous, so careful as he? There had been that one night at the Warbeck's dance--but beyond that, never by word or look had he been unfaithful!

He is beginning almost to pride himself upon his good behaviour, when all at once it comes to him that it has been _easy_ to be faithful, that there has been no trouble at all about being scrupulous.

It is like a dagger in his heart. Is it all at the end then? Must it be regarded as a thing that was told--that old, sweet story! Dead, withered, with the life, the meaning, gone from it. And if so, what remains?

Nothing but the face of a small, angry little girl defying him--defying him always.

Pouf! He thrusts it from him. He lights another cigar. Again the old anger breaks out. Tita's words come back to him. Plainly she would be as glad to get rid of him as he---- She had spoken of her own way. Why not let her go that way? It leads to her cousin. All the finger-posts point in that direction. Well---- If so---- There might be a divorce, and a divorce would mean marriage with Marian, and----

He stands staring stupidly at the ground before him. What is the matter with him? Only three months, three little months ago, and such a thought would have raised ecstasy within his heart, and now----

How flat it all seems, how unprofitable! Nothing seems alive within him save a desire for vengeance on this child who has dared to drag his name into the dust.

This child!

Again her face rises before him. Pale, determined, scorning him! He had read hatred in her glance, and behind that hatred--bred of it, perhaps--love for her cousin.

He flings his cigar into a bush near him, and goes back to the house, taking the path his wife had chosen.


CHAPTER XII.

HOW TITA, RUNNING FROM THE ENEMY, SUDDENLY FINDS HERSELF FACE TO FACE WITH ANOTHER FOE; AND HOW SHE FIGHTS A SECOND BATTLE, AND COMES OFF VICTORIOUS!


Tita, once out of the sight of Maurice, had run home very quickly. She knew that she was crying, and despised herself for so doing, but could not check her tears. She was not sure what they meant, grief or rage. Perhaps a little of both. All her guests were in the garden, so she would not return to the house that way, though it was much the nearest; but turning into a side path she made for a point in the shrubberies, from which one could get to the armoury door without being seen by anyone.

She is wrong in her calculations, however, for just as she steps into the shrubbery walk, she finds herself face to face with Tom Hescott.

_"Tita!_ You have been crying!" says he suddenly, after a devouring glance at her small face, that indeed shows all the signs of woe.

"No, no!" cries Tita breathlessly.

She puts up her hands in protestation. She has grown crimson with shame and vexation.

"You have," says Hescott, almost savagely. The knowledge that he is leaving to-morrow (they are all leaving except the elder Lady Rylton) has rendered him desperate, and made more difficult of concealment the mad passion he entertains for her. "What has happened?" he asks, going closer to her and letting his cigar drop to the ground. "Are you unhappy? You," breathing quickly, "have been unhappy for a long time!"

"And even so, am I the only person in the world who is unhappy? Are you never unhappy?" demands Tita defiantly.

"God knows I am, _always!"_ says Hescott. "But you! That _you_ should be unhappy!"

"Never mind me," says Tita petulantly. "And I must say," with a little flaming glance at him, "that it would have been in much better taste if you--if you had pretended to see that I was _not_ crying."

Hescott does not hear, or takes no notice of this little bombshell.

"Has your husband been unkind to you?" asks he sharply, most unpardonably.

Tita looks at him for a second as if he had struck her, and then waves him aside imperiously.

"Maurice is never unkind to me," says she, "and even if he were, I should not allow you or anyone to question me in the matter. What are you thinking of?"

"Of you," slowly.

"You waste your time," says Tita.

"It is not wasted. It is spent on you," says Hescott, with compressed but strong passion. "And now a last word, Tita. If ever you want to--to----" He hesitates. "To leave him," he had almost said, but her proud eyes and her pale lips made him hesitate--_such_ pride! It raises his love for her to fever-heat. "If ever you should want anyone to help you, I----"

She interrupts him. She makes a haughty little gesture with hand. It would be impossible to describe the wild grace and beauty of it--or the dignity.

"If ever I should, I shall have Maurice!" says she coldly.

Hescott looks at her. Of course he has been told that old story about Mrs. Bethune, and has seen for himself many things.

"You are an angel!" says he at last, very sadly; yet he would not have wished her less than that.

"Don't be absurd!" says Tita most ungratefully.

She marches past him with her angry little head still upheld, but presently a word from him brings her to a standstill.

"Don't be angry with me, Tita," he is saying in a low tone. "I'm going away to-morrow."

"Ah, so you are!" says Tita. Her sweet nature comes back to her. Dear old Tom! And she has been saying such horrid things to him. "Never mind me, Tom!" says she, holding out her hand to him. "I'm dreadfully cross sometimes, but I don't ever mean it, really. And," smiling gently at him, "you _know_ that I love you!"

Hescott takes her hand. His heart seems very full--too full for words. Those words, "I love you!" He stoops and presses a kiss upon the little warm fingers now resting within his own. And without another word he leaves her.

He is hardly gone, when Rylton lays his hand upon her arm.

"Well," says he, his voice vibrating with anger. He had followed her, as has been said, with no idea of watching her, but with a curious longing to get near to her again. _Why,_ he could hardly have explained even to himself. The only thing he did know in that walk homeward was that he was most horribly, most unreasonably unhappy!

He had followed her and he had found her crying, or at least with the signs of tears upon her eyes, and had seen her cousin kissing her hand. A slight madness came over him then. Crying for her cousin, no doubt, because he must leave her to-morrow!

"Well!" His tone is abrupt, almost brutal. Yet even in this hour where all things point to her discomfiture he cannot get the victory over her.

"Well?" demands she in return, shaking her arm loose from his hold.

"You have been crying for him, no doubt--for your----" He pauses.

"My what?" asks Tita. She is looking at him with fearless, wondering eyes.

"Your cousin," says Rylton, altering the phrase that would have made it in his anger, "your lover."

"I have not been crying because of Tom," says Tita coldly, "though I am very sorry he is going. He loves me, I _think."_

"Do you?" says Rylton. A sarcastic smile crosses his lips "And you? Do you love him? No doubt cousins are charming possessions. And so I find you crying because your dear possession is going, and because, no doubt, you were confiding to him what a desperate monster a husband can be."

There is hardly anything in his life afterwards that Rylton is so ashamed of as this; even now in the heat of the terrible anger that leads him so to forget himself, he cowers before the girl's eyes.

"Is that what people do in _your_ set?" says she coldly--icily. "In the charmed circle within which your mother tells me I am not fit to enter? If so, I am glad I do not belong to it. Set your mind at ease, Maurice. I have not told Tom anything about you. I have not even told him what a----" She pauses. A flash from her eyes enters his. "I have told him nothing--nothing," says she, running past him into the house.


CHAPTER XIII.

HOW A LITTLE SPARRING IS DONE AMONGST THE GUESTS AT OAKDEAN; AND HOW TOM HESCOTT TELLS A STORY.


Meantime all the others are sitting out in the garden, gossiping to their hearts' content. They had tried tennis, but the courts are rather soft now; and though an Indian summer has fallen upon us, still it has not sufficed to dry up all the moisture caused by the late rains.

The little thatched hut at the end of the gardens, where the sun is now blazing, has drawn them all into a net, as it were. It is an off day, when there is no shooting, and the women are therefore jubilant, and distinctly in the ascendant. The elder Lady Rylton is not present, which adds to the hilarity of the hour, as in spite of her wonderful juvenility she is by no means a favourite. Miss Gower, however, _is--_which balances the situation.

"I don't believe I ever felt so sorry for leaving any place," says Mrs. Chichester (who is always talking) with a soft but prolonged sigh--the sigh that is meant to