A Terrible Secret Part 37

"Of--you!" The two words drop from Trixy's ashen lips.

"Of me, dear, and he thinks at this moment that you understood him so.

Trixy--don't be angry with me--how could I help it--he proposed to me yesterday afternoon."

"Proposed to you yesterday afternoon!" Trix repeats the words like one who has been stunned by a blow, in a dazed sort of tone. "And you--refused him, Edith?"

"Accepted him, Trixy. I said yes to Sir Victor Catheron this morning in the grounds."

Then there was a pause. The ticking of the little Swiss clock, the joyous warble of the thrushes, the soft rustle of the trees sounding preternaturally loud. Beatrix Stuart sat white to the lips, with anger, mortification, amaze, disappointment. Then she covered her face with her hands, and burst into a vehement flood of tears.

"Trix! dear Trix!" Edith exclaimed, shocked and pained; "good Heaven, don't cry! Trix, dearest, I never knew you were in love with him."

"In love with him!" cried Trix, looking up, her eyes flashing through her tears, "the odious little wishy-washy, drawling c.o.xcomb! No, I'm not in love with him--not likely--but what business had he to go talking like that, and hemming and hawing, and hinting, and--oh!"

cried Trix, with a sort of vicious screech, "I should like to tear his eyes out!"

"I dare say you would--the desire is both natural and proper,"

answered Edith, smothering a second desire to laugh; "but, under the circ.u.mstances, not admissible. It was a stupid proceeding, no doubt, his speaking to you at all, but you see the poor fellow thinks you understood him, and meant it for the best."

"Thought I understood him!" retorted Miss Stuart, with a vengeful glare. "Oh, _shouldn't_ I like to make him understand me! The way he went on that night, kissing my hand, and calling me Beatrix, and talking of speaking to pa, and meaning you all the time, is enough--enough to drive a person stark, staring mad. All Englishmen are fools--there!" exclaimed Miss Stuart, sparks of fire drying up her tears, "and Sir Victor Catheron's the biggest fool of the lot!"

"What, Trix! for wanting to marry me?"

"Yes, for wanting to marry you. You, who don't care a bad cent for him!"

"How many bad cents did you care, Miss Stuart, when you were so willing to be his wife?"

"More than you, Miss Darrell, for at least I was not in love with any one else."

"And who may Miss Darrell be in love with, pray?"

"With Charley," answered Trix, her face still afire. "Deny it if you dare! In love with Charley, and he with you."

She was looking up at her rival, her angry gray eyes so like Charley's as she spoke, in everything but expression, that for an instant Edith was disconcerted. She could not meet them. For once in her life her own eyes fell.

"Are we going to quarrel, Trix? Is it worth while, for a man you have decided we neither of us care for--we who have been like sisters so long?"

"Like sisters!" Trix repeated bitterly. "Edith, I wonder if you are not scheming and deceitful!"

"Beatrix!"

"Oh, you needn't 'Beatrix' me! I mean it. I believe there has been double dealing in this. He paid attention to me before you ever came to New York. I believe if I hadn't been sea-sick he would have proposed to me on the ship. But I _was_ sea-sick,--it's always my luck to be everything that's miserable,--and _you_ were with him night and day."

"Night and day! Good gracious, Trixy, this is awful!"

"You know what I mean," pursued Trix loftily. "You got him in love with you. Then, all the way to Killarney you flirted with Charley--poor Charley--and made him jealous, and jealousy finished him. You're a very clever girl, Edith, and I wish you a great deal of joy."

"Thank you; you say it as if you did. I don't take the trouble to deny your charges; they're not worth it--they are false, and you know them to be so. I never sought out Sir Victor Catheron, either in New York, on board ship, or elsewhere. If he had been a prince, instead of a baronet, I would not have done it. I have borne a great deal, but even you may go too far, Trixy. Sir Victor has done me the honor of falling in love with me--for he does love me, and he has asked me to be his wife. I have accepted him, of course; it was quite impossible I could do otherwise. If, at Killarney, he was stupid, and you made a blunder, am I to be held accountable? He does not dream for a moment of the misunderstanding between you. He thinks he made his meaning as clear as day. And now I will leave you; if I stay longer we may quarrel, and I--I don't want to quarrel with you, Trixy."

Her voice broke suddenly. She turned to the door, and all the smallness of her own conduct dawned upon Trix. Her generous heart--it _was_ generous in spite of all this--smote her with remorse.

"Oh, come back, Edith!" she said; "don't go. I won't quarrel with you.

I'm a wretch. It's dreadfully mean and contemptible of me, to make such a howling about a man that does not care a straw for me. When I told you, _you_ wished me joy. Just come back and give me time to catch my breath, and I'll wish you joy too. But it's so sudden, so unexpected. O Dithy, I thought you liked Charley all this while!"

_How_ like Charley's the handsome dark gray eyes were! Edith Darrell could not meet them; she turned and looked out of the window.

"I like him, certainly; I would be very ungrateful if I did not. He is like a brother to me."

"A brother! Oh, bother," retorted Trix, with immeasurable scorn and dignity. "Edith, honor bright! Haven't you and Charley been in love with each other these two years?"

Edith laughed.

"A very leading question, and a very absurd one. I don't think it is in either your brother or me to be very deeply in love. _He_ would find it feverish and fatiguing--you know how he objects to fatigue; and I--well, if love be anything like what one reads of in books, an all-absorbing, all consuming pa.s.sion that won't let people eat or sleep, I have never felt it, and I don't want to. I think that sort of love went out of fashion with Amanda Fitzallen. You're a sentimental goose, Miss Stuart, and have taken Byron and Miss Landon in too large doses."

"But you like him," persisted his sister, "don't you, Dithy?"

"Like him--_like_ him!" Her whole face lit up for a second with a light that made it lovely. "Well, yes, Trix, I don't mind owning that much--I do like Charley--like him so well that I won't marry and ruin him. For it means just that, Trixy--ruin. The day we become anything more than friends and cousins your father would disinherit him, and your father isn't the heavy father of the comedy, to rage through four acts, and come round in the fifth, with his fortune and blessing.

Charley and I have common-sense, and we have shaken hands and agreed to be good friends and cousins, nothing more."

"What an admirable thing is common-sense! Does Sir Victor know about the hand-shaking and the cousinly agreement?"

"Don't be sarcastic, Beatrix; it isn't your forte! I have nothing to confess to Sir Victor when I am married to him; neither your brother nor any other man will hold the place in my heart (such as it is) that he will. Be very sure of that."

"Ah! such as it is," puts in Trix cynically; "and when, is it to be, Dithy--the wedding?"

"My dear Trix, I only said yes this morning. Gentlemen don't propose and fix the wedding-day all in a breath. It will be ages from now, no doubt. Of course Lady Helena will object."

"You don't mind that?"

"Not a whit. A grand-aunt is--a grand-aunt, nothing more. She is his only living relative, he is of age, able to speak and act for himself.

The true love of any good man honors the woman who receives it. In that way Sir Victor Catheron honors me, and in no other. I have neither wealth nor lineage; in all other things, as G.o.d made us, I am his equal!"

She moved to the door, her dark eyes shining, her head erect, looking in her beauty and her pride a mate for a king.

"There is to be a driving-party to Eastlake Abbey, after luncheon,"

she said; "you are to be carried down to the barouche and ride with your father and mother, and Lady Helena--Charley and Captain Hammond for your cavaliers."

"And you?"

"Sir Victor drives me."

"Alone, of course?" Trixy says, with a last little bitter sneer.

"Alone, of course," Edith answers coldly. Then she opens the door and disappears.

CHAPTER XI.