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

to the happiest results, and I am sure you do care for her--and--_do_ try and make up with her."

"You must be out of your mind!" says Maurice, springing to his feet, and to poor Margaret's abject fear speaking at the top of his lungs. "With _her,_ when she deliberately deserted me of her own accord--when----"

"Oh, hush, hush!" says Margaret in an agony. She makes wild signs to him, pointing towards the closed doors as she does so. A nice girl, we all know, would rather _die_ than put her ear to a keyhole, even if by doing so she could save her neck from the scaffold; but the very best of girls might by chance be leaning against a door through the chinks of which sounds might enter from the room beyond it. "She'll _hear_ you!" gasps Margaret.

"I don't care if she does," says Maurice indignantly, but he calms down for all that, and consents to sit in a chair as far from the folding-doors as possible. "You have misjudged me all through," says he.

"I think not--I hope not. But I will say, Maurice, that I think you began your marriage badly, and--you should not have----"

"Have what?"

"Asked Marian to stay with you."

"That was"--gloomily--"a mistake. I admit that. But have _I_ nothing to complain of?"

"Nothing, I honestly believe."

Her tone is so honest (Margaret herself is so sweetly honest all through) that he remains silent for a moment. It is, however, a constrained silence. The knowledge that Tita is standing or sitting, laughing or frowning, behind those boards over there, disturbs him in spite of himself.

"Well, I have often thought that, too," says he, "and yet I have often thought--the other thing. At all events, you cannot deny that _he_ was in love with her."

"Why should I deny that? To me"--with a reproachful glance at him--"she seems like one with whom many might be in love."

"Oh, you are a partisan!" says he irritably, rising abruptly, and preparing to pace the room.

Margaret catches his coat as he goes by her.

"I entreat, I implore you to be quiet. It is so _slight_ a partition," says she. "Do sit down like a dear boy and talk softly, unless"--wistfully and evidently hopefully--"you want to go away."

"Well, I don't," says he grimly.

He reseats himself. An extraordinary fascination keeps him in this room, even in face of the fact that the mistress of it is plainly longing for his departure. She has even openly hinted at it. And the fascination? It lies there behind the folding-doors. There is no romance in it, he tells himself; it is rather the feeling of an enemy who knows his foe to be close by. He turns to Margaret.

"Why did she refuse that money?"

"Why did you refuse hers?"

"Pshaw! You're evading the question. To take half of her little pittance! I wonder you can even suggest the thing. It--it is almost an insult," says he, reddening to his brows.

"I didn't mean it," says Margaret quickly, the more so that she thinks he is going to walk the room again. "Of course you could not have taken it."

"And yet I did take her money," says he miserably; "I wish to heaven now I hadn't. _Then_ it seemed a fair exchange--her money for my title; it is done every day, and no one thinks anything of it--but now---- It was a most cursed thing," says he.

"It would have been nothing--nothing," says Margaret eagerly, "if you had been heart-whole. But to marry her, loving another, that was wrong--unpardonable----"

"Unpardonable!" He looks at her with a start. What does she mean? Is he beyond pardon, indeed? Pardon from---- "That's all over," says he.

"It wasn't over _then!"_

"I don't know----" He gets up and walks to the window in an agitated fashion, and then back again. "Margaret, I don't believe I ever loved her."

Margaret stares at him.

"You are talking of Marian?"

"Yes; Marian. If I did love her, then there is no such thing as love--love the eternal--because I love her no longer."

"It is not that," says Margaret; "but love can be killed. Poor love!" she sighed. "Marian of her own accord has killed yours."

There is a long pause; then: "Well, I'm glad of it," says he.

He lifts his arms high above his head, as a man might who yawns, or a man might who has all at once recognised that he is rid of a great encumbrance.

"I suppose you did not come here to discuss your love affairs with Marian," says Margaret, a little coldly.

In a strange sort of way she had liked Marian, and she knew that Marian, in a strange sort of way, clung to _her_. And, besides, to say love could be killed! It was tantamount to saying love could die! Has _her_ love died? Colonel Neilson had been with her a good deal since her return to town, and there had been moments of heart-burning, when she had searched her heart indeed, and found it wanting--wanting in its fixed determination to be true for ever to the dear dead beloved. And such a miserable wanting, a mere craving to be as others are--to live in the life of another, to know the warmth, the _breath_ of the world's sunshine--to love, and be loved again.

No wonder Margaret is angry with Rylton for bringing all these delinquencies into the light of certainty.

"No," says Sir Maurice moodily. "I came here to see you."

"You told me you intended leaving town yesterday."

"Yes, I know. I meant it. But I've changed my mind about stopping in the country--at least, I'm running down to The Place for the night to see after some business with the agent, but I'll be back to-morrow."

"Really, you must forgive me if I say I don't think much of your mind," says Margaret, who is still a little sore over her own reflections.

"I don't think much of it myself," says Rylton, with increasing gloom.

At this abject surrender Margaret's tender heart relents.

"I believe all you have told me," says she; "and I suppose I'm glad of it, although--Well, never mind that. Marian deserves no pity, but still----"

"Pshaw!" says he. "What has Marian got to do with it? Marian never cared _that_ about me." He makes an expressive movement with his fingers--a little snap. "I know now that Marian only played with me. I amused her. I was the plaything of an hour."

"You wrong her there, Maurice."

"Do I? How? They tell us"--with a bitter smile--"that if a woman loves a man she will cling to him through all things--poverty, ill-repute, even crime. But poverty, the least of these things, daunted _her."_

"She had known so _much_ poverty----"

"Are you pleading _her_ cause now?" says Maurice, with a slight smile. "You plead it badly. The very fact of her knowing it so well should not have deterred her from trying it again with the man she loved. I offered to throw up everything for her, to go abroad, to work, to wrestle with fortune for her sake, but she----" He stops, and draws a long breath. "Well, it is over," says he.

"That is. But your future life----"

"I'm not a favourite of gods, am I?" says he, laughing. "My future life! Well, I leave it to them. So Tita is looking well?"

"Yes; quite well. A little pale, I said."

"She never had much colour. She never speaks of me, I suppose?"

"Sometimes--yes."

Rylton looks down at the carpet, and then laughs a little awkwardly.

"I expect I had better not inquire into it," says he. "It is a general remark, yet it is _all _question."

"Of course, she remembers things," says Margaret nervously.

If he were to make another scene, to prance up and down the room, and talk at the top of his lungs, there is no knowing _what_ may not happen, considering who is standing behind those folding-doors.

"We can all remember things," says Sir Maurice, rising and holding out his hand. He bids her good-bye. As he gets to the door he looks back. "Tell her I didn't like to keep her in durance vile longer than was necessary," says he.

With this parting shot, he goes down the stairs and out of the house.


CHAPTER XXI.

HOW MARGARET MAKES A FEARFUL DISCOVERY; HOW SHE RUSHES TO THE RESCUE, BUT IS FAR FROM WELL RECEIVED; AND HOW TITA GIVES HERSELF AWAY, NOT ONCE, BUT TWICE.


Margaret, with a keen sense of relief, goes to the folding-doors, opens them cautiously, and looks in. A distinctly cold and cutting air greets her; she is aware at once that she is standing in a thorough draught. And where is Tita?

Good gracious! where _can_ she have gone to? There is no exit from this room save through the next, where she and Rylton have been sitting--except by the chimney, or through one of the windows. For one awful moment it occurs to Miss Knollys that Tita might have flung herself out of a window.

She glances hurriedly to the window nearest her, and then sees something that makes her heart stand still.

Are those Tita's heels?

Margaret's mind is full of suicidal fears. She steps cautiously towards the open window--the window through which Tita's body is now flung. Tita's feet alone are in the room! Tita herself is suspended between heaven and earth, like Mahomet's coffin!

"Tita! what are you doing?" cries Margaret, laying a sudden hand upon the white sash that is encircling Lady Rylton's waist.

At this, the latter scrambles back into a more respectable position, and stares at Margaret with angry, shamed eyes, and cheeks like a "red, red rose."

"Good gracious!" says she. "Why, you very nearly threw me out of the window."

Now, this is so manifestly unfair that Margaret feels resentment. What had her action been? She had dragged Tita backwards into the room; she had not pushed her out, as the latter seemed to suggest.

"I quite thought you were trying to throw yourself out of the window," says Margaret, with emphasis. "What _have_ you been doing?"

"Nothing--nothing," declares Tita airily, hurriedly. "The day is so lovely--you remember we were talking about it a while ago. I was--er--listening to the birds."

"Surely one need not hang one's self out of a window to listen to them," says Miss Knollys. "Why don't you confess the truth? You were looking at Maurice."

"Well, if you _will_ have it," says Tita resentfully, "I _was!_ I was curious to see if he was as ill-tempered looking as ever. I was foiled, however; I saw nothing but the back of his odious head."

"What a disappointment!" says Margaret, laughing with an irrepressible if rather unkind mirth.

"I dare say I shall get over it," coldly, with a distrustful glance at Margaret. "Well--how _is_ he looking?"

At this Margaret laughs again.

"That was just what he asked about you!"

"About me!" frowning. "Fancy his asking anything about me! Well, and you said I was looking----"

"Lovely, but a little pale, as if you were pining."

"Margaret, you did _not_ say that!"

"My dear child, of course I did. I am not sure about the pining, but I certainly said you looked pale. So you do. You couldn't expect me to tell a lie about it."

"I could indeed. I," with deep