Tristram of Blent Part 16

"When I was a girl there were no such questions."

"What about Lady Tristram, then?"

There was flattery in this, ten or fifteen years of flattery. Miss S.

was unmoved.

"I am happy to say that Lady Tristram never called at Seaview." Miss S.'s house was called Seaview--Sea-Backview would have been a more precise description.

"I call him in love with Janie Iver. He must want to marry her or----"

"They do say that money isn't very plentiful at Blent. And there'll be the Death Duties, you know."

"What are they?" asked Mina.

"Like stamps," explained Miss S., vaguely. "For my part, I think it's lucky he is what he is. There's been enough of falling in love in the Tristram family. If you ask me who is in love with her, of course it's poor young Broadley. Well, you know that, as you're always driving up to Mingham with her."

"We've only been three or four times, Miss Swinkerton."

"Six, I was told," observed Miss S., with an air of preferring accuracy.

"Oh, I should be very pleased to see him married to Janie--Mr Tristram, I mean, of course--but she mustn't expect too much, my dear. Where's your uncle?"

"At Fairholme, I expect," answered the Imp demurely. As a matter of fact the Major had gone to Exeter on a business errand.

"Fairholme?" Miss S.'s air was significant, Mina's falsehood rewarded.

Mina threw out a smile; her visitor's pursed lips responded to it.

"He goes there a lot," pursued Mina, "to play golf with Mr Iver."

"So I've heard." Her tone put the report in its proper place. To play golf indeed!

"I think Janie's rather fond of Mr Tristram, anyhow." This was simply a feeler on Mina's part.

"Well, my dear, the position! Blent's been under a cloud--though people don't seem to mind that much nowadays, to be sure. But the new Lady Tristram! They've always been the heads of the neighborhood. She'll have him, no doubt, but as for being in love with him--well, could you, Madame Zabriska?"

"Yes," said the Imp, without the least hesitation. "I think he's most attractive--mysterious, you know. I'm quite taken with him."

"He always looks at me as if I wanted to pick his pocket."

"Well, you generally do--for your charities." The laugh was confined to Mina herself. "But I know the manner you mean."

"Poor young man! I'm told he's very sensitive about his mother. That's it perhaps." The guess was at all events as near as gossip generally gets to truth. "It would make him a very uncomfortable sort of husband though, even if one didn't mind having that kind of story in the family."

With a flash of surprise--really she had not been thinking about herself, in spite of her little attempts to mystify Miss S.--Mina caught that lady indulging in a very intent scrutiny of her, which gave an obvious point to her last words and paved the way (as it appeared in a moment) for a direct approach to the princ.i.p.al object of Miss S.'s visit. That this object did not come to the front till Miss S. was on her feet to go was quite characteristic.

"I'm really glad, my dear," she observed, hanging her silk bag on her arm, "to have had this talk with you. They do say such things, and now I shall be able to contradict them on the best authority."

"What do they say?"

"Well, I never repeat things; still I think perhaps you've a right to know. They do say that you're more interested in Harry Tristram than a mere neighbor would be, and--well, really, I don't quite know how to put it."

"Oh, I do!" cried Mina, delightedly hitting the mark. "That uncle and I are working together, I suppose?"

"I don't listen to such gossip, but it comes to my ears," Miss S.

admitted.

"What diplomatists we are!" said the Imp. "I didn't know we were so clever. But why do I take Janie to Mingham?"

"They'd say that Bob Broadley's no real danger, and if it _should_ disgust Harry Tristram----"

"I am clever! Dear Miss Swinkerton, I never thought of anything half so good myself. I'll tell uncle about it directly."

Miss S. looked at her suspiciously. The innocence seemed very much over-done.

"I knew you'd laugh at it," she observed.

"I should do that even if it was true," said Mina, thoroughly enjoying herself.

Miss S. took her leave, quite undecided whether to announce on the best authority that the idea was true, or that it was quite unfounded. One thing only was certain; whatever she decided to say, she would say on the best authority. If it turned out incorrect in the end, Miss S. would take credit for an impenetrable discretion and an unswerving loyalty to the friends who had given her their confidence.

Mina was left very unquiet. Miss S. chimed in with the Major; the neighborhood too seemed in the same tune. She could laugh at the ingenuities attributed to her, yet the notions which had given them birth found, as she perceived more and more clearly, a warrant in her feelings, if not in her conduct. Look at it how she would, she was wrapped up in Harry Tristram; she spent her days watching his fortunes, any wakeful hour of the night found her occupied in thinking of him. Was she a traitor to her friend Janie Iver? Was that treachery bringing her back, by a roundabout way, to a new alliance with her uncle? Did it involve treason to Harry himself? For certainly it was hard to go on helping him toward a marriage with Janie Iver.

"But I will all the same if he wants it," she exclaimed, as she paced about on the terrace, glancing now and then down at Blent. And again she stood aghast at the thorough-going devotion which such an att.i.tude as that implied. "If only I could keep out of things!" she murmured. "But I never can."

Major Duplay drove up the hill in a Blentmouth station fly; he had met the doctor on the road, and the news was that in all probability Lady Tristram would not live out the night. The tidings gained added solemnity from Duplay's delivery of them, even though a larger share of his impressiveness was directed to the influence the event might have on his fortunes than to the event itself.

"Then we shall see. He'll a.s.sume the t.i.tle, I suppose. That's no affair of mine. And then he'll go to Fairholme. That is." He turned suddenly, almost threateningly, upon her. "I hope you've come to your senses, Mina," said he. "You'll have to speak, you know. If I can't make you, Iver will." He paused and laughed. "But you'll speak fast enough when you find yourself in the lawyer's office."

Mina refused to be frightened by the threatened terrors of the law.

"Who's going to take me to a lawyer's office?" she demanded.

"Why, Iver will, of course." He showed contemptuous surprise. "Oh, you've gone too far to think you can get out of it now."

She studied him attentively for a moment or two. The result was rea.s.suring; his bl.u.s.tering manner hid, she believed, a sinking heart.

"You can't frighten me, uncle. I've made up my mind what to do, and I shall do it."

She was not afraid of him now. She was wondering how she had come to be bullied into telling her secret at all, looking back with surprise to that scene in the library when, with sullen obedience and childish fear, she had obeyed his command to speak. Why was it all different now? Why was his attempt to take the same line with her not only a failure, but a ridiculous effort? She knew the angry answer he would give. Could she give any other answer herself? A new influence had come into her life.

She had not ceased to be afraid, but she was afraid of somebody else. A domination was over her still, but it was no longer his. Like some turbulent little city of old Greece, she had made her revolution: the end had been to saddle her with a new tyrant. There seemed no more use in denying it; the Major said it, Miss S. said it, the neighborhood was all agreed. What she herself was most conscious of, and most oppressed by, was a sense of audacity. How dared she devote herself to Harry Tristram? He had asked nothing of her. No, but he had imposed something on her. She had volunteered for his service. It was indeed "women's nonsense" when she spoke of him as "That Boy."

Duplay turned away from her, disheartened and disgusted. Things looked well for the enemy. He was alone with his unsupported story of a conversation which Mina would not repeat, with his empty purse which could supply no means of proving what he said. He ran the risk of losing what chance he had of Janie Iver's favor, and he was in sore peril of coming off second-best again in his wrestling-bout with Harry Tristram.

The Man in Possession was strong. The perils that had seemed so threatening were pa.s.sing away. Mina was devoted; Neeld would be silent.

Who would there be who could effectively contest his claim, or oust him from his place? Thus secure, he would hardly need the check always by him. Yet he was a cautious wary young man. There is little doubt that he would still like to have the check by him, and that he would take the only means of getting it.

Now that the moment had come for which all his life had been a preparation, Harry Tristram had little reason to be afraid.