The Coryston Family Part 33

"Yes, Lord Coryston!"

"If you're so critical of my clothes, why don't you come and look after them and me?"

She gasped--then recovered herself.

"I've never been asked," she said, quietly.

"Asked! Haven't you been scolding and advising me for weeks? Is there a detail of my private or public life that you don't meddle with--as it pleases you? Half a dozen times a day when I'm with you, you make me feel myself a fool or a brute. And then I go home and write you abject letters--and apologize--and explain. Do you think I'd do it for any other woman in the world? Do you dare to say you don't know what it means?"

He brought his threatening face closer to hers, his blue eyes one fiery accusation. Marion resumed her work, her lip twitching.

"I didn't know I was both a busybody--and a Pharisee!"

"Hypocrite!" he said, with energy. His hand leaped out and captured hers.

But she withdrew it.

"My dear friend--if you wish to resume this conversation--it must be at another time. I haven't been able to tell you before, I didn't know it myself till late last night, when Enid told me. Your mother--Lady Coryston--will be here in half an hour--to see Enid."

He stared.

"My mother! So _that's_ what she's been up to!"

"She seems to have asked Enid some days ago for an interview. My father's taken Mr. Glenwilliam out of the way, and I shall disappear shortly."

"And what the deuce is going to happen?"

Marion replied that she had no idea. Enid had certainly been seeing a great deal of Arthur Coryston; London, her father reported, was full of talk; and Miss Atherstone thought that from his manner the Chancellor knew very well what was going on.

"And can't stick it?" cried Coryston, his eyes shining. "Glenwilliam has his faults, but I don't believe he'll want Arthur for a son-in-law--even with the estates. And of course he has no chance of getting both Arthur and the estates."

"Because of your mother?"

Coryston nodded. "So there's another strong man--a real big 'un!--dependent, like Arthur and me--on the whim of a woman. It'll do Glenwilliam nothing but good. He belongs to a cla.s.s that's too fond of beating its wives. Well, well--so my mother's coming!" He glanced round the little house and garden. "Look here!" He bent forward peremptorily. "You'll see that Miss Glenwilliam treats her decently?"

Marion's expression showed a certain bewilderment.

"I wouldn't trust that girl!" Coryston went on, with vehemence. "She's got something cruel in her eyes."

"Cruel! Why, Lady Coryston's coming--"

"To trample on her? Of course. I know that. But any fool can see that the game will be Miss Glenwilliam's. She'll have my mother in a cleft stick.

I'm not sure I oughtn't to be somewhere about. Well, well. I'll march. When shall we 'resume the conversation,' as you put it?"

He looked at her, smiling. Marion colored again, and her nervous movement upset the work-basket; b.a.l.l.s of cotton and wool rolled upon the gra.s.s.

"Oh!" She bent to pick them up.

"Don't touch them!" cried Coryston. She obeyed instantly, while, on hands and knees, he gathered them up and placed them in her hand.

"Would you like to upset them again? Do, if you like. I'll pick them up."

His eyes mocked her tenderly, and before she could reply he had seized her disengaged hand and kissed it. Then he stood up.

"Now I'm going. Good-by."

"How much mischief will you get into to-day?" she asked, in a rather stifled voice.

"It's Sunday--so there isn't so much chance as usual. First item." He checked them on his fingers. "Go to Redcross Farm, see Betts, and--if necessary--have a jolly row with Edward Newbury--or his papa. Second, Blow up Price--my domestic blacksmith--you know!--the socialist apostle I rescued from my mother's clutches and set up at Patchett, forge and all--blow him up sky-high, for evicting a widow woman in a cottage left him by his brother, with every circ.u.mstance of barbarity. There's a parable called, I believe, 'The Unjust Servant,' which I intend to rub into him.

Item, No. 3, Pitch into the gentleman who turned out the man who voted for Arthur--the Radical miller--Martover gent--who's coming to see me at three this afternoon, to ask what the deuce I mean by spreading reports about him. Shall have a ripping time with him!"

"Why, he's one of the Baptists who were on the platform with you yesterday." Marion pointed to the local paper lying on the gra.s.s.

"Don't care. Don't like Baptists, except when they're downtrodden." A vicious kick given to a stone on the lawn emphasized the remark. "Well, good-by. Shall look in at Coryston this afternoon to see if there's anything left of my mother."

And off he went whistling. As he did so, the head and profile of a young lady richly adorned with red-gold hair might have been seen in the upper window. The owner of it was looking after Coryston.

"Why didn't you make him stay?" said Enid Glenwilliam, composedly, as she came out upon the lawn and took a seat on the gra.s.s in front of the summer-house.

"On the contrary, I sent him away."

"By telling him whom we were expecting? Was it news to him?"

"Entirely. He hoped you would treat Lady Coryston kindly." Then, with a sudden movement, Marion looked up from her mending, and her eyes--challenging, a little stern,--struck full on her companion.

Enid laughed, and, settling herself into the garden chair, she straightened and smoothed the folds of her dress, which was of a pale-blue c.r.a.pe and suited her tall fairness and brilliance to perfection.

"That's good! I shouldn't have minded his staying at all."

"You promised to see Lady Coryston alone--and she has a right to it," said Marion, with emphasis.

"Has she? I wonder if she has a right to anything?" said Enid Glenwilliam, absently, and lifting a stalk of gra.s.s, she began to chew it in silence while her gaze wandered over the view.

"Have you at all made up your mind, Enid, what you are going to say?"

"How can I, till I know what _she's_ going to say?" laughed Miss Glenwilliam, teasingly.

"But of course you know perfectly well."

"Is it so plain that no Conservative mother could endure me? But I admit it's not very likely Lady Coryston could. She is the living, distilled essence of Conservative mothers. The question is, mightn't she have to put up with me?"

"I do not believe you care for Arthur Coryston," said Marion, with slow decision, "and if you don't care for him you ought not to marry him."

"Oh, but you forget a lot of things!" was the cool reply. "You simplify a deal too much."

"Are you any nearer caring for him--really--than you were six weeks ago?"

"He's a very--nice--dear fellow." The girl's face softened. "And it would be even sweeter to dish the pack of fortune-hunting mothers who are after him, now, than it was six weeks ago."

"Enid!"