Birds of Prey Part 45

Hawkehurst is not what he once was to you, you must remember how cold and distant you always are in your manner to him. I am sure, to hear you speak to him, and to see you look at him sometimes, one would think he was positively hateful to you. And I want you to like him a little for my sake."

Miss Halliday left her seat by the window as she said this, and went towards the table by which her friend was sitting. She crept close to Diana, and with a half-frightened, half-caressing movement, seated herself on the low ottoman at her feet, and, seated thus, possessed herself of Miss Paget's cold hand.

"I want you to like Mr. Hawkehurst a little, Di," she repeated, "for my sake."

"Very well, I will try to like him a little--for your sake," answered Miss Paget, in a very unsympathetic tone.

"O, Di! tell me how it was he offended you."

"Who told you that he offended me?"

"Your own manner, dear. You could never have been so cold and distant with him--having known him go long, and endured so many troubles in his company--if you had not been deeply offended by him."

"That is your idea, Charlotte; but, you see, I am very unlike you. I am fitful and capricious. I used to like Mr. Hawkehurst, and now I dislike him. As to offence, his whole life has offended me, just as my father's life has offended me, from first to last. I am not good and amiable and loving, like you; but I hate deceptions and lies; above all, the lies that some men traffic in day after day."

"Was Valentine's--was your father's life a very bad one?" Charlotte asked, trembling palpably, and looking up at Miss Paget's face with anxious eyes.

"Yes, it was a mean false life,--a life of trick and artifice. I do not know the details of the schemes by which my father and Valentine earned their daily bread--and my daily bread; but I know they inflicted loss upon other people. Whether the wrong done was always done deliberately and consciously upon Valentine's part, I cannot say. He may have been only a tool of my father's. I hope he was, for the most part an unconscious tool."

She said all this in a dreamy way, as if uttering her own thoughts, rather than seeking to enlighten Charlotte.

"I am sure he was an unconscious tool," cried that young lady, with an air of conviction; "it is not in his nature to do anything false or dishonourable."

"Indeed! you know him very well, it seems," said Diana.

Ah, what a tempest was raging in that proud pa.s.sionate heart! what a strife between the powers of good and evil! Pitying love for Charlotte; tender compa.s.sion for her rival's childlike helplessness; and unutterable sense of her own loss.

She had loved him so dearly, and he was taken from her. There had been a time when he almost loved her--almost! Yes, it was the remembrance of that which made the trial so bitter. The cup had approached her lips, only to be dashed away for ever.

"What did I ask in life except his love?" she said to herself. "Of all the pleasures and triumphs which girls of my age enjoy, is there one that I ever envied? No, I only sighed for his love. To live in a lodging-house parlour with him, to sit by and watch him at his work, to drudge for him, to bear with him--this was my brightest dream of earthly bliss; and she has broken it!"

It was thus Diana argued with herself, as she sat looking down at the bright creature who had done her this worst, last wrong which one woman can do to another. This pa.s.sionate heart, which ached with such cruel pain, was p.r.o.ne to evil, and to-day the scorpion Jealousy was digging his sharp tooth into its very core. It was not possible for Diana Paget to feel kindly disposed towards the girl whose unconscious hand had shattered the airy castle of her dreams. Was it not a hard thing that the bright creature, whom every one was ready to adore, must needs steal away this one heart?

"It has always been like this," thought Diana. "The story of David and Nathan is a parable that is perpetually being ill.u.s.trated. David is so rich--he is lord of incalculable flocks and herds; but he will not be content till he has stolen the one little ewe lamb, the poor man's pet and darling."

"Diana," said Miss Halliday very softly, "you are so difficult to talk to this morning, and I have so much to say to you."

"About your visit, or about Mr. Hawkehurst?"

"About--Yorkshire," answered Charlotte, with the air of a shy child who has made her appearance at dessert, and is asked whether she will have a pear or a peach.

"About Yorkshire!" repeated Miss Paget, with a little sigh of relief.

"I shall be very glad to hear about your Yorkshire friends. Was the visit a pleasant one?"

"Very, very pleasant!" answered Charlotte, dwelling tenderly on the words.

"How sentimental you have grown, Lotta! I think you must have found a forgotten shelf of Minerva Press novels in some cupboard at your aunt's. You have lost all your vivacity."

"Have I?" murmured Charlotte; "and yet I am happier than I was when I went away. Whom do you think I met at Newhall, Di?"

"I have not the slightest idea. My notions of Yorkshire are very vague.

I fancy the people amiable savages; just a little in advance of the ancient Britons whom Julius Caesar came over to conquer. Whom did you meet there? Some country squire, I suppose, who fell in love with your bright eyes, and wished you to waste the rest of your existence in those northern wilds."

Miss Paget was not a woman to bare her wounds for the scrutiny of the friendliest eyes. Let the tooth of the serpent bite never so keenly, she could meet her sorrows with a bold front. Was she not accustomed to suffer--she, the scapegoat of defrauded nurses and indignant landladies, the dependent and drudge of her kinswoman's gynaeceum, the despised of her father? The flavour of these waters was very familiar to her lips. The draught was only a little more acrid, a little deeper, and habit had enabled her to drain the cup without complaining, if not in a spirit of resignation. To-day she had been betrayed into a brief outbreak of pa.s.sion; but the storm had pa.s.sed, and a more observant person than Charlotte might have been deceived by her manner.

"Now you are my own Di again," cried Miss Halliday; somewhat cynical at the best of times, but always candid and true.

Miss Paget winced ever so little as her friend said this.

"No, dear," continued Charlotte, with the faintest spice of coquetry; "it was not a Yorkshire squire. It was a person you know very well; a person we have been talking of this morning. O, Di, you must surely have understood me when I said I wanted you to like him for my sake!"

"Valentine Hawkehurst!" exclaimed Diana.

"Who else, you dear obtuse Di!"

"He was in Yorkshire?"

"Yes, dear. It was the most wonderful thing that ever happened. He marched up to Newhall gate one morning in the course of his rambles, without having the least idea that I was to be found in the neighbourhood. Wasn't it wonderful?"

"What could have taken him to Yorkshire?"

"He came on business."

"But what business?"

"How do I know? Some business of papa's, or of George Sheldon's, perhaps. And yet that can't be. He is writing a book, I think, about geology or archaeology--yes, that's it, archaeology."

"Valentine Hawkehurst writing a book on archaeology!" cried Miss Paget.

"You must be dreaming, Charlotte."

"Why so? He does write, does he not?"

"He has been reporter for a newspaper. But he is the last person to write about archaeology. I think there must be some mistake."

"Well, dear, it may be so. I didn't pay much attention to what he said about business. It seemed so strange for him to be there, just as much at home as if he had been one of the family. O, Di, you can't imagine how kind aunt Dorothy and uncle Joe were to him! They like him so muchy--and they know we are engaged."

Miss Halliday said these last words almost in a whisper.

"What!" exclaimed Diana, "do you mean to say that you have promised to marry this man, of whom you know nothing but what is unfavourable?"

"What do I know in his disfavour? Ah, Diana, how unkind you are! and what a dislike you must have for poor Valentine! Of course, I know he is not what people call a good match. A good match means that one is to have a pair of horses, whose health is so uncertain that I am sure their lives must be a burden to them, if we may judge by our horses; and a great many servants, who are always conducting themselves in the most awful manner, if poor mamma's experience is any criterion; and a big expensive house, which n.o.body can be prevailed on to dust. No, Di!

that is just the kind of life I hate. What I should like is a dear little cottage at Highgate or Wimbledon, and a tiny, tiny garden, in which Valentine and I could walk every morning before he began his day's work, and where we could drink tea together on summer evenings--a garden just large enough to grow a few rose-bushes. O. Di! do you think I want to marry a rich man?"

"No, Charlotte; but I should think you would like to marry a good man."

"Valentine is good. No one but a good man could have been so happy as he seemed at Newhall farm. That simple country life could not have been happiness for a bad man."

"And was Valentine Hawkehurst really happy at Newhall?"