Airy Fairy Lilian Part 26

"I wish I knew," replies he: "I confess it has been puzzling me ever since. We must ask Florence when we go in."

Here they both laugh a little, and stroll on for a time in silence. At length, being prompted thereto by her evil genius, Lilian says:

"Tell me, who is the Heskett you and auntie were talking about just now?"

"A boy who lives down in the hollow beneath Leigh's farm,--a dark boy we met one day at the end of the lawn; you remember him?"

"A lad with great black eyes and a handsome face with just a little _soupcon_ of wickedness about him? of course I do. Oh! I like that boy.

You must forgive him, Sir Guy, or I shall be unhappy forever."

"Do you know him?"

"Yes, well. And his mother, too: she is a dear old thing, and but that she has an undeniable penchant for tobacco, would be perfection. Guardy, you _must_ forgive him."

"My dear child, I can't."

"Not when I ask you?" in a tone of purest astonishment.

"Not even then. Ask me something else,--in fact, anything,--and I will grant it, but not this."

"I want nothing else," coldly. "I have set my heart on freeing this poor boy and you refuse me: and it is my first request."

"It is always your first request, is it not?" he says, smiling a rather troubled smile. "Yesterday----"

"Oh, don't remind me of what I may have said yesterday," interrupts Miss Chesney, impatiently: "think of to-day! I ask you to forgive Heskett--for my sake."

"You should try to understand all that would entail," speaking the more sternly in that it makes him positively wretched to say her nay: "if I were to forgive Heskett this time, I should have every second man on my estate a poacher."

"On the contrary, I believe you would make them all your devoted slaves.

'The quality of mercy is not strain'd; It droppeth, as the gentle dew from heaven, Upon the place beneath; it is twice bless'd.'"

"I have said I would not, and even you can hardly think it right that I should break my word."

"No, you would rather break his mother's heart!" By this time the spoiled Lilian has quite made up her mind to have her own way, and is ready to try any means to gain it. "Your word!" she says disdainfully: "if you are going to emulate the Medes and Persians, of course there is no use of my arguing with you. You ought to be an ancient Roman; even that detestable Brutus might be considered soft-hearted when compared with you."

"Sneering, Lilian, is a habit that should be confined to those old in sorrow or worldly wisdom: it sits badly on such lips as yours."

"Then why compel me to indulge in it? Give me my way in this one instance, and I will be good, and will probably never sneer again."

"I cannot."

"Then don't!" naughtily, made exceeding wroth by (what she is pleased to term) his obstinacy. "I was foolish in thinking I could influence you in any way. Had Florence asked you, you would have said yes instantly."

"Florence would never have asked me to do anything so unreasonable."

"Of course not! Florence never does wrong in your eyes. It is a pity every one else does not regard her as favorably as you do."

"I think every one thinks very highly of her," angrily.

"Do you? It probably pleases you to think so. I, for one, do not."

"There is a certain cla.s.s of people whose likes and dislikes cannot possibly be accounted for," says Guy, somewhat bitterly. "I think you would find a difficulty in explaining to me your vehement antipathy toward Miss Beauchamp. You should remember 'unfounded prejudices bear no weight.'"

"That sounds like one of Miss Beauchamp's own trite remarks," says Lilian, with a disagreeable laugh. "Did you learn it from her?"

To this Chetwoode makes no reply, and Lilian, carried away by resentment at his open support of Florence, and by his determination not to accede to her request about young Heskett, says, pa.s.sionately:

"Why should you lose your temper about it?" (it is her own temper that has gone astray). "It is all not worth a quarrel. Any one may plainly see how hateful I am to you. In a thousand ways you show me how badly you think of me. You are a petty tyrant. If I could leave your house, where I feel myself unwelcome,--at least as far as _you_ are concerned,--I would gladly do so."

Here she stops, more from want of breath than eloquence.

"Be silent," says Guy, turning to confront her, and thereby showing a face as pale as hers is flushed with childish rage and bafflement. "How dare you speak like that!" Then, changing his tone, he says quietly, "You are wrong; you altogether mistake. I am no tyrant; I do what is just according to my own conscience. No man can do more. As to what else you may have said, it is _impossible_ you can feel yourself unwelcome in my house. I do not believe you feel it."

"Thank you," still defiant, though in truth she is a little frightened by his manner: "that is as much as to say I am telling a lie, but I do believe it all the same. Every day you thwart and disappoint me in one way or another, and you know it."

"I do not, indeed. It distresses me much that you should say so. So much, that against my better judgment I give in to you in this matter of Heskett, if only to prove to you how you wrong me when you say I wish to thwart you. Heskett is pardoned."

So saying, he turns from her abruptly and half contemptuously, and, striking across the gra.s.s, makes for a path that leads indirectly to the stables.

When he has gone some yards it occurs to Miss Chesney that she feels decidedly small. She has gained her point, it is true, but in a sorry fashion, and one that leaves her discontented with her success. She feels that had he done rightly he would have refused to bandy words with her at all upon the subject, and he would not have pardoned the reprehensible Heskett; something in his manner, too, which she chooses to think domineering, renders her angry still, together with a vague, uneasy consciousness that he has treated her throughout as a child and given in to her merely because it is a simpler matter to surrender one's judgment than to argue with foolish youth.

This last thought is intolerable. A child, indeed! She will teach him she is no child, and that women may have sense although they have not reached the admirable age of six-and-twenty.

Without further thought she runs after him, and, overtaking him just as he turns the corner, says, very imperiously, with a view to sustaining her dignity:

"Sir Guy, wait: I want to speak to you."

"Well," he says, stopping dead short, and answering her in his iciest tones. He barely looks at her; his eyes, having once met hers, wander away again without an instant's lingering, as though they had seen nothing worthy of attention. This plain ignoring of her charms is bitter to Miss Chesney.

"I do not want you to forgive that boy against your will," she says, haughtily. "Take back your promise."

"Impossible! You have made me break my word to myself; nothing shall induce me to break my word to you. Besides, it would be unfair to Heskett. If I were to dismiss him now I should feel as though I had wronged him."

"But I will not have his pardon so."

"What!"--scornfully,--"after having expended ten minutes in hurling at me some of the severest eloquence it has ever been my fate to listen to, all to gain this Heskett's pardon, you would now have it rescinded! Am I to understand so much?"

"No; but I hate ungraciousness."

"So do I,"--meaningly,--"even more than I hate abuse."

"Did I abuse you?"

"I leave you to answer that question."