The Hoyden Part 23

"His cousin!" t.i.ta's thoughts run to Margaret. "Margaret?"

"Nonsense!" says Lady Rylton; the idea strikes her as ludicrous. The surprise, the strange awakening to the young bride, who, if not in love with her husband, has at all events expected loyalty from him, has affected her not at all; but this suggestion of Margaret as a possible lover of Maurice's convulses her with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Margaret!

_No!"_

"Who, then?" asks t.i.ta.

"Marian--Marian Bethune."

"Mrs. Bethune!"

"Did you never guess? I fancied perhaps you had heard nothing, so I felt it my duty to let you into a _little_ of the secret--to _warn_ you. Marian might want to stay with you, for example--and Maurice----"

"Mrs. Bethune may stay with me with pleasure," says t.i.ta. "Why not?"

"Why _not?"_ Lady Rylton pauses as if choking. She had thought to lower this girl into the very dust, and revenge herself on Maurice at the same time by her shameful revelation. "You do not care, then?" says she, bitterly disappointed.

t.i.ta does not answer her. Suddenly her young thoughts have gone backwards, and all at once she remembers many things. The poison has entered into her. In a moment, as it were, she is back in that dim conservatory where Maurice (he has never been "he" or "him" to her, as happier girls, who love more and are more beloved, would have styled him)--where Maurice had asked her to marry him.

Now, in some strange fashion, her memory grows alive and compels her to remember how he looked and spoke that night--that night of his proposal to her, when she had asked him if he loved his cousin.

There had been a queer, indescribable change in his face--a sudden pallor, a start! She had thought nothing of it then, but now it comes back to her. She _had_ meant Margaret--Margaret whom she loves; but he--who had _he_ meant?

Really it doesn't matter so much after all, this story of Lady Rylton's. Maurice can go his way and she hers--that was arranged!

But, for all that, it _does_ seem rather mean that he should have married her, telling her nothing of this.

"Care! why should I care?" says she suddenly, Lady Rylton's last words clinging to her brain, in spite of all its swift wanderings during the last sixty seconds.

"Such an admirable indifference would almost lead me to believe that you had been born of good parentage," says Lady Rylton, cold with disappointed revenge.

"I was born of excellent parentage----" t.i.ta is beginning, when the sound of footsteps slowly mounting the stairs of the veranda outside comes to them.

A second later Mrs. Gower shows himself.

CHAPTER XIII.

HOW A YOUNG AND LOVELY NATURE TAKES A SHOCK MOST CRUELLY ADMINISTERED. AND HOW A DOWAGER TAKES A NEW NAME AS A DIRECT INSULT.

AND HOW t.i.tA DECLINES TO PROMISE ANYTHING.

He stands at the open window looking in. All at once t.i.ta knows and _feels_ that Margaret sent him to rescue her from captivity.

"Lady Rylton," calls he, "won't you come out? The evening is a perfect dream--a boon and a blessing to men, like those pens, you know."

The elder Lady Rylton answers him. She leans forward, a charming smile on her wonderfully youthful features.

"No. No, thanks." She shakes her pretty, fair head at Gower in a delightfully coquettish fashion. Dear boy! How sweet is it of him to come and fetch her for a little stroll among the hollyhocks. "I can't go out now. Not _to-night_, Randal!"

"Oh! er--so sorry! But----" He looks at t.i.ta. It is impossible not to understand that the Lady Rylton he had intended to take for a little stroll in the calm, delightful evening, had been the younger Lady Rylton. "Well, if your--er--mother--won't come, won't _you?"_ asks he, now addressing t.i.ta distinctly.

"I am not going out either," says she, smiling gently at him. To go now will be to betray fear, and she--no, she will not give in, any way, she will never show the white feather. She will finish this hour with Lady Rylton, whatever it may cost her.

"Really?" asks Gower. He looks as if he would have persuaded her to come with him, but something in her manner convinces him of the folly of persistence.

"Yes, really," returns she, after which he goes down the steps again. They can hear him going, slowly this time, as if reluctantly, and step by step. There doesn't seem to be a run left in him.

"How absurd it is, this confusion of t.i.tles!" says Lady Rylton, as the last unsatisfactory step is lost to them in the distance. "Lady Rylton here and Lady Rylton there. Absurd, _I_ call it." She makes a pretence at laughter, but it is a sorry one--her laugh is only angry.

"I suppose it can't be helped," says t.i.ta indifferently. Her eyes are still downcast, her young mouth a little scornful.

"But if you are to be Lady Rylton as well as I, how are we to distinguish? What am _I_ to be?"

"The dowager, I suppose," says t.i.ta, with a little flash of malice.

She has been rubbed the wrong way a trifle too much for _one_ afternoon.

_"The dowager!"_ Lady Rylton springs to her feet. "I--do you think that _I_ shall follow _you_ out of a room?"

"Follow me! I'd hate you to follow me anywhere!" says t.i.ta, who does not certainly follow her as to her meaning.

"That is meant to be a smart speech, I presume," says Lady Rylton, sinking back into her seat once more. "But do not for a moment imagine that I dread you. You know very little of Society if you think you will be tolerated _there."_

"I know nothing of Society," returns t.i.ta, now very pale, "and perhaps you will understand me when I say that I never want to know anything. If Society means people who tell hateful, unkind stories of a husband to his wife, I think I am very well out of it."

"That is a little censure upon poor me, I suppose," says Lady Rylton with a difficult smile. She looks at t.i.ta. Evidently she expects t.i.ta to sink into the ground beneath that austere regard, but t.i.ta comes up smiling.

"Well, yes. After all, I suppose so," says she slowly, thoughtfully.

"You shouldn't have told me that story about Maurice and----" She stops.

"I shall not permit you to dictate to me what I should or should not do," interrupts Lady Rylton coldly. "You forget yourself! You forget what is due to the head of the house."

"I do not, indeed; Maurice will tell you so!"

"Maurice! What has he to do with it?"

"Why, he _is_ the head," slowly.

"True, you are right so far," says Lady Rylton bitterly. "But I was not alluding to the _actual_ head; I was alluding to the--the _mistress_ of this house." She pauses, and looks with open hatred at the little girl before her. t.i.ta could have answered her, have told her that her authority was at an end for ever, but by a violent effort she restrains herself. t.i.ta's naturally warm temper is now at boiling-point. Still, she puts a restraint upon herself.

"You will understand for the future, I hope," says Lady Rylton, who has lost all control over _her_ temper; "you will, for the future, at all events, I trust, bear yourself with respect towards the mistress of this house."

Her manner is so insolent, so unbearable, that t.i.ta's short-lived calm gives way.

"Maurice says I am the mistress here," says she distinctly, clearly.

"You! _you----"_ Lady Rylton advances towards her with a movement that is almost threatening.

"Don't be uneasy about it," says t.i.ta, with a scornful little laugh, and a gesture that destroys the meaning of Lady Rylton's. "I don't want to be the mistress here. I dislike the place. I shall be delighted if you will live here--_instead of me."_