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

kindly things about her. So many, and so kindly indeed, that Margaret almost forgave her that reprehensible flirtation with Captain Marryatt. But then Margaret, at that time, knew nothing of the luckless curate!

The greatest surprise of all, however, came from old Miss Gower. Popularly she had been supposed to hate Tita, and resent her marriage with Rylton, who was a relative of hers; but five days after the _fiasco,_ as Randal called it, Rylton had a letter from her that somewhat startled him. It was extremely abusive, and rather involved; but the meaning of it was that he ought to be ashamed of himself, and that Tita was too good for him. She wound up with a few very rude remarks directed at Mrs. Bethune, and a hope that Tita would stick to her determination to cast off the tyrant--_Man_ (the capital was enormous), as personified by Maurice.

Rylton wasn't in the least annoyed by this letter; indeed, it somewhat puzzled him to find that he rather liked it, and he put it away in his private drawer, amongst the papers he cared for.

Margaret had taken Tita to Rome, and thence to Constantinople. She had kept her moving about from place to place, hoping to clear her mind of all past deadly thoughts by constant change. She had a hope that by breaking off all old associations, the girl might come to think of the past--and Maurice--in a more gentle, lenient light, and thus be prepared for a reconciliation in the future. To Margaret it seemed terrible that these two young people should be for ever apart--their lives ruined, their social position smirched.

A long separation from her own country--her own circle--might lead Tita to desire a return to it--a return to her husband and her home.

Alas! not to the old home, however. She might desire a return to that with all her soul, yet nothing would come of it. It was gone! Gone past recall! When Tita's affairs were wound up, it was found that all should be sold, not only her other two houses, but the old home--the one beloved of her childhood. Oakdean came to the hammer a month ago!

Indeed, out of all her large fortune only a bare £300 a year was saved for the poor little heiress of yesterday! When Tita was assured that even this small sum was honourably hers, she had insisted on her lawyers writing and offering half of it to Maurice--an offer I need hardly say refused. Maurice declined, naturally, but, unfortunately, very rudely, to touch a penny of hers.

So far Tita was protected from actual poverty--poverty was much closer to Maurice at this time than to her; and, indeed, being with Margaret, who loved her from her heart, and would hear no word of her leaving her, hardly felt the change in her position. The loss of the old home--of Oakdean--had been, so far as Margaret could see, the one thing that had deeply affected her. Of Maurice she would hardly talk at all, but of Oakdean she would talk by the hour.

The wheels of law grind slowly, and it was not until last month that the actual sale of her beautiful home took place. The news came to her when she and Margaret were at Berne on their homeward way, and she had quite broken down. She had cried terribly over it night and day--so much, indeed, that Margaret, who had been astonished at her strength of mind over her loss of fortune, now began to regard her as devoid of it altogether. For days and days she fretted, eating scarcely anything, caring for nothing. It was when Margaret was almost in despair about her that she grew better, and let herself be amused by the ordinary occurrences of the day.

As for Rylton, these past six months had been the fullest of his life. Time had made him his shuttlecock. Fortune had played with him. It had caught him when he was up in the world and flung him to the ground, and after that had seized him afresh, and sent him flying to a higher altitude than he had ever known before. As a fact, three months had not elapsed after his parting with his wife when his uncle (a comparatively young man) had died of typhoid fever, leaving him all his property.

It seemed the very irony of fate. A year ago, if he had had this money, he would not have even _seen_ Tita. The marriage was an arrangement of his mother's, and now that he has got this money, of what good is it to him? His wife is gone, yet he still is wedded. The first sense of comfort he got from his newly-acquired fortune was the thought that he could now give Tita some of it.

But Tita would none of it! The very fact that their cases had been so suddenly and so marvellously reversed made her the more strong in her determination to spurn any gift from him. She was now sitting on the lowest rung of Fortune's ladder, whilst he stood at the top; but, for all that, she would take nothing from him. Rylton wrote to Margaret, who scolded Tita vigorously to no end; and so the matter stood. The first instalment of a very magnificent allowance was paid into Tita's bank, and rested there untouched, doing no good to anybody.

"It is senseless! As his wife, you are entitled to some of his money. It is not a gift," said Margaret angrily.

But Tita had laughed, and tore his letter to Margaret in two.

"He wouldn't take my small gift," said she, alluding to that offer of hers of the half of her tiny income. "And now it does me _good_ to be able to refuse his big one."

"But it isn't a gift; it is your right," Margaret urged again; but all in vain.

Now they are back once more in England. Ten days ago they arrived, and are this morning in Margaret's pretty room that is half filled with growing plants, moving about from this flower to that, and feeling unconsciously little thrills of delight in the fresh sweetness of the morning.


"Spring goeth all in white,
Crowned with milk-white May;
In fleecy flocks of light,
O'er heaven the white clouds stray.

"White butterflies in the air,
White daisies prank the ground;
The cherry and the hoary pear
Scatter their snow around."


Well, there are no cherry-trees or hoary pear-trees here, but the perfume of the delicate lilac comes to them from the Park, telling them that spring is reigning, even in this dusty old city, with a right royal gaiety.

Twice during these ten days Rylton has called, always asking scrupulously for Margaret; and Margaret only has he seen. Hescott had called once, but Tita would not see him either, and poor Margaret had a rather dreadful interview with him. He had offered her in a frantic, foolish moment, half of all he was worth to be given from him to Tita, and Margaret had a good deal of difficulty in explaining to him that Tita, in reality, was as well off as any young woman need be. Margaret even exaggerated somewhat, and told him that she had a large sum lying idle in a bank--as indeed she had, considering Rylton paid in his princely allowance to her, with determined punctuality, every month, in spite of his knowledge of the fact that she would not touch it. Margaret suffered a good deal through Hescott, and was devoutly grateful when she learned the morning after his visit to her that he had started for a prolonged tour in South Africa. She learned this from himself in a somewhat incoherent letter, and a paragraph in the papers the day after set her mind at rest. Margaret was a Christian, or she might have found consolation in the thought that there are lions in South Africa!

She watched Tita anxiously for a day or two after this, but could not see that the girl was distressed at Tom's departure. She talked of him, indeed, very freely--always a good sign.


* * * * *


"Tita, do you hear the birds?" says Margaret, in quite a little excited way. "Come here to this window. How they sing!"

"Don't they!" says Tita rapturously.

Her face lights up, but presently she looks a little sad.

"It makes you long for the country?" asks Margaret gently, looking at her without seeming to do so.

"No," says Tita, shaking her head resolutely; and then: "Yes--yes. But I shall always hate to go to it now--now that the dear old home is gone."

"I wish I had been able to buy it!" says Margaret regretfully.

"Oh, Meg, don't go on like that! You--you who have been everything to me!"

"I wasn't rich enough," says Margaret ruefully; "and, at all events, I wasn't in time. I confess now I sold out some shares a little time ago with a view to getting it, but I was too late; it was bought--a private sale, they said."

"There is nothing I can say--nothing," says Tita, tears dimming her eyes. "Why are you so good to me? Oh, Meg! there is one, one thing--I love you, and love you, and love you!" She slips her soft arms round Margaret's neck, and presses her cheek to hers. There is moisture on Margaret's face when this little burst of gratitude has been accomplished. "I never loved anyone as I love you," says Tita.

"There is someone else you ought to love better, Tita."

"There is someone else I _hate,"_ returns Tita, with really astonishing promptitude.

"Well, about Oakdean," says Margaret quickly, appalled by this outbreak of wrath.

"There is nothing about it; it is gone," says Tita, in a forlorn sort of way; then: "I wonder who bought it?"

"I don't know. I asked, but I could not find out. Some rich merchant, no doubt."

"Well," sighing, "a rich merchant bought it before--my poor father--and to a rich merchant it has gone. That is as it should be. Still, it was so pretty, so lovely, so homelike, that I wish----"

"What, darling?"

"That it had been burnt to the ground before anyone else got it," breaks out Tita, in a little storm of grief and despair.

"Yes, I know; I can feel with you," says Margaret, pressing her back into a chair, and hovering over her with loving touches and tender words. "But, after all, Tita, one has to give up things daily. It is life. Life is one long surrender."

"My surrender has been done in a bundle," says Tita indignantly. "Other people do their surrenders by degrees, year after year; but in _one_ year I have lost everything--my home, my money, my husband."

Margaret notes with fear that she has put her husband last in the list of her losses.

"Not that I care a fig about Maurice," continues Tita, with a tilt of her chin that would have made any man admire her. "I was delighted to get rid of _him."_ Then, glancing at Margaret, she flings her arms round her neck again. "No; don't look at me like that. I'm a wretch. But _really,_ Margaret, you know that Maurice was a wretch, too!"

"Well, well!" says Margaret sadly. "It seems useless to defend Maurice--you know how sorry I am for you always," she goes on gently. "To come from riches to poverty is