The Hoyden Part 22

"The air so soft, the pines whispering so low, The dragon-flies, like fairy spears of steel, Darting or poised."

All these speak of the glad heat that still remains, though summer itself is but a dream that is gone.

t.i.ta's honeymoon is at an end. It had seemed to her delightful. She had taken but a child's view of it. Maurice had been so kind, so good, so different from that nasty old uncle. He had been so good, indeed, that when he asked her to come first to see his mother (Lady Rylton had made quite a point of this in her letters to him; the county might think it so odd if the young wife did not appear anxious to fly into her arms on her return), she had said "Yes"

quite willingly, and with a grateful little glance. He had done so much for her, she must do something for him. But she hated going back to The Place, for all that. She wanted to go straight to her own old home, her beautiful Oakdean, without a single stop.

She has been at The Place now for a week. Margaret Knollys and Randal Gower are the only two guests, Mrs. Bethune being on a visit to some friends in Scotland. The shooting here is excellent, and Sir Maurice has enjoyed himself immensely. Sir Maurice's wife has, perhaps, not enjoyed herself quite so much. But nothing, so far, has occurred to render her in the very least unhappy. If the clouds be black, she has not seen them. Her young soul has uplifted itself, and is soaring gaily amongst the stars. In her ignorance she tells herself she is quite, quite happy; it is only when we love that we doubt of happiness, and thus sometimes (because of our modesty, perhaps) we gain it. t.i.ta has never known what love means.

There has been a little fret, a little jar to-day, between her and Lady Rylton. The latter's memory is good, and she has never forgotten what Maurice--in a moment's folly--had said of t.i.ta's determination not to live with her at The Place. It is Lady Rylton's _role_ to return to all, in extra good measure, such injuries as she may judge herself to have received.

t.i.ta naturally, in this small warfare, is at a disadvantage. She has forgotten her words, but even if she remembered them, would not for a moment suspect Maurice of having repeated them. And, indeed, Maurice, as we all know, had done it in a heated moment with best intent towards his small betrothed; besides, t.i.ta at this time--so heartwhole and so _debonnaire--_gives no thinking to anything save the getting out into the fresh air in these uncertain days, and the breaking in of a young horse that Maurice has made her a present of.

Danger walks behind her, but she never turns her head; what has she to fear?

"Youth, that knows no dread Of any horrors lurking far ahead, Across the sunny flowered fields of life."

carries her safely right into the enemy's camp. Cruel youth!

"Won't you come out with me and have a stroll in the gardens before tea?" asks Margaret, rising. It seems to her that the social air is growing a little too sultry. "Come, t.i.ta; it will do you good."

"Oh, I should love it!" says t.i.ta, starting to her feet.

"Dear Margaret, you forget that, though t.i.ta has been here for a week, this is the very first quiet moment I have had with her! Do not tempt her from me!"

"Certainly not, Tessie, if you wish to have her with you," says Margaret, reseating herself.

Now, more than ever, she feels there is danger in the air.

"Don't let me keep _you,"_ says Lady Rylton, with deliberation. "Go, dear Margaret, and get some of the sweet evening air--it may be of use to your complexion; it is the tiniest bit yellow of late. And when one is twenty-five--it _is_ twenty-five?"

She knows Margaret's truthful nature.

"Thirty," says Margaret, who knows her, too, to the very ground.

"Ah, impossible!" says Lady Rylton sweetly. "Twenty-five, Margaret--not a day more! But, still, your complexion---- There, go away and refresh it; and come back when I have had my little chat with my dearest t.i.ta."

Margaret casts a swift glance at the girl sitting there, apparently quite unconscious of the coming storm, and with her hands twined behind her head. She has her legs crossed--another sin--and is waving one little foot up and down in a rather too careless fashion.

t.i.ta looks back at her.

"Don't be long," says she inaudibly.

Margaret gives her a nod, and goes out through the window.

"My dearest child," says Lady Rylton, nestling cosily into her chair, and smiling delicately at t.i.ta over the top of her fan, "you may have noticed that I gave dear Margaret her _conge_ with intent?"

"I saw that you wanted to get rid of her," says t.i.ta.

"I fear, my dear, your training has been somewhat defective," says Lady Rylton, biting her lips. "We never--we in society, I mean--never 'get rid' of people. There are better ways of doing things, that----"

"It must cause you a lot of trouble," says t.i.ta. "It looks to me like walking half a dozen times round your bath on a frosty morning, knowing all along you will have to get into it."

"Sh!" says Lady Rylton. "My dear, you should not mention your _bath_ before people."

"Why not? When one loves a thing, one speaks of it. Don't _you_ love your bath?" asks t.i.ta.

Lady Rylton sits glaring at her, as if too horrified to go on. t.i.ta continues:

"If you don't, you ought, you know," says she.

"You must be out of your mind to talk to me like this," says Lady Rylton at last. Something in the girl's air tells her that there is some little touch of devilment in it, some anger, some hatred. "But, naturally, I make allowances for you. Your birth, your surroundings, your bringing up, all preclude the idea that you should know how to manage yourself in the world into which you have been thrown by your marriage with my son."

"As for my birth," says t.i.ta slowly, "I did not choose it; and you should be the last to throw it in my teeth. If you disapproved of it _before_ my marriage with your son, why did you not say so?"

"There were many reasons," says Lady Rylton slowly, deliberately.

"For one, as you know, your money was a necessity to Maurice; and for another----" She breaks off, and scans the girl's face with an air of question. "Dare I go on?" asks she.

"Why should you not dare?" says t.i.ta.

A quick light has come into her eyes.

"Ah, that is it! I have something to say to you that I think, perhaps, should be said, yet I fear the saying of it."

"For you, or for me?" asks t.i.ta.

She has her small brown hands clasped tightly together in her lap now. There is something nervous in the tension of them. Where, _where_ is Margaret? For all that, she looks back at her mother-in-law with a clear and fearless glance.

"For you," says Lady Rylton--"for you only! But before I begin--I am a very nervous person, you know, and scenes," again pressing her handkerchief to her face, "upset me so--tell me, _do_ tell me, if you have a good temper!"

"I don't know," says t.i.ta. "Why?"

"Well, a reasonable temper! I know Maurice would try anything--_less_ than that."

"Has it to do with Maurice? Yes? I am _very_ reasonable," says t.i.ta, laughing. She shows all her pretty teeth. "Now for the other reason for deigning to accept me as your son's wife!"

She laughs again. She seems to turn Lady Rylton into a sort of mild ridicule.

"I don't think I should laugh about it if I were _you,"_ returns Lady Rylton calmly, and with the subdued air that tells her intimates when she is in one of her vilest moods. "I feel very sorry for you, my poor child; and I would have warned you of this thing long ago, but I dreaded the anger of Maurice."

"Why, what _is_ it?" cries t.i.ta vehemently. "Has Maurice murdered somebody, or defrauded somebody, or run away with somebody?"

"Oh no! He did not run _away_ with her," says lady Rylton slowly.

"You mean--you mean----"

The girl is now leaning forward, her small face rather white.

"I mean that he has been in love with his cousin for the past two years."