Uncle Max Part 74

'No,' very uneasily; but she did not meet my eyes. 'I defy you to prove that I have. Still, if I were your enemy, ought you not to heap coals of fire on my head?'

'Possibly.'

My coolness seemed to frighten her; she lost her sullen self-possession.

'Have you no heart?' she said pa.s.sionately. 'Will you not hold up a finger to help me? You have influence with Giles; do not deny it. If you ask him to keep me here he will not refuse you, and you will make me your slave for life.'

I heard this proposition with disgust. She could cringe to me whom she hated. I shook my head, feeling unable to answer her.

'I could help you,' she persisted, fixing her miserable eyes on me. 'Oh, I know what you want: you cannot hide from me that you are unhappy. I know where the hindrance lies; one word from me would bring Giles to your feet. Am I to say that word?'

'No,' I returned indignantly. 'Do you think that I would owe anything to you? I would rather be unhappy all my life than be under such an obligation. You are powerless to harm me, Miss Darrell; your plots are nothing to me.'

'And yet a word from me would bring him to your feet.'

'I do not want him there,' I replied, irritated at this persistence.

'I do not wish you to mention his name to me; if you do so again I will leave you.'

'On your head be your own obstinacy,' she returned angrily; but I could see the despair in her eyes, and I answered that.

'Miss Darrell,' I went on, more gently, 'I cannot help you in this. How could I ask Mr. Hamilton to keep you under his roof, knowing that you have poisoned his domestic happiness? Even if I could be so mad or foolish, would he be likely to listen to me?'

'He would listen to you,' half crying: 'you know he worships the ground you walk on.'

I tried to keep back the rebellious colour that rose to my face at her words.

'Do not cheat yourself with this insane belief,' I returned quietly. 'Mr.

Hamilton is inexorable when he has decided on anything.'

'Inexorable! you may well say so!' rocking herself in an uncontrollable excitement. 'Giles is hard,--cruel in his wrath: he will send me away and never see me again.' And now the tears began to flow.

'Miss Darrell,' I continued pityingly, 'for your own sake listen to me a moment. You have failed most miserably in the past: let the future years be years of repentance and atonement. Mr. Hamilton will not forgive until you have proved yourself worthy of forgiveness: remember you owe the future to him.'

She stared at me for a moment as though my words held some hope for her; then she turned her back on me and went on rocking herself. 'Too late!'

I heard her mutter: 'I cannot be good without him.' And, with a strange sinking of heart, I left the room.

She could bring him to my feet with a word. Was this the truth, or only an idle boast? No matter; I would not owe even his love to this woman.

'I can live without you, Giles,--my Giles,' I whispered; but hot tears burnt my cheeks as I spoke.

In the afternoon I saw Miss Darrell pacing up and down the asphalt walk.

Gladys saw her too, and turned away from the window rather nervously.

'How restless Etta seems!' she said once; but I made no answer. Towards evening I heard her footsteps perambulating the long pa.s.sage, and softly turned the key in the lock without Gladys noticing the movement. Gladys noticed very little in that sweet dreamy mood that had come to her; her own thoughts occupied her; her lover's letter had more than contented her.

About ten o'clock I went in search of Chatty, and came face to face with Miss Darrell. She was in her crumpled yellow dressing-gown, and her dark hair hung over her shoulders; her eyes looked bright and strange. I moved back a step and laid my hand on the handle.

She greeted this action with a disagreeable laugh.

'I suppose you heard me trying the door just now. Yes, I wanted to see Gladys; I wished to make some one feel as wretched as I do myself; but you were too quick for me. Do you always keep your patients under lock and key?'

'Sometimes,' laconically, for I disliked her manner more than ever to-night: it was not the first time that I had fancied that she had had recourse to some form of narcotic. 'Why do you not go to bed, Miss Darrell?'

'Perhaps I shall when I have thoroughly tired myself. These pa.s.sages have rather a ghastly look: they remind me of Leah, too,' with a shudder.

'Good-night, Miss Garston; pleasant dreams to you. I suppose you have not thought better of what I said about Giles?'

'No, certainly not,' retreating into my room and locking the door in a panic. I heard a husky laugh answer me. Perhaps last night's watching had tired my nerves, for it was long before I could compose myself to sleep.

The night pa.s.sed quietly, and I woke, refreshed, to the sound of summer rain pattering on the shrubs. The little oak avenue looked wet and dreary; but no amount of rain or outward dreariness could damp me, with the expectation of Mr. Hamilton's return; and I helped Chatty arrange our rooms with great cheerfulness.

He came back earlier than I expected. I had hardly finished settling Gladys for the day,--she took great pains with her toilet now, and was hard to please in the matter of ruffles and ornaments,--when Chatty told me that he wished to speak to me a moment.

I made some excuse and joined him without delay. He looked much as he had the previous morning,--very worn and tired, and his eyes a little sunken; but he greeted me quietly, and even kindly; he asked me if I felt better, and how Gladys was. I was rather ashamed of my nervous manner of answering, but that odious speech of Miss Darrell would come into my mind when he looked at me.

'Chatty says my cousin is in the dining-room: do you mind coming down with me for a few minutes? I do not wish to see her alone.'

Of course I signified my willingness to accompany him, and he walked beside me silently to the dining-room door.

Miss Darrell was sitting on the circular seat looking out on the oak avenue; she did not turn her head, and there was something hopeless in the line of her stooping shoulders. I saw her hands clutch the cushions nervously as her cousin walked straight to the window.

'Etta,' he began abruptly, 'I wish you to listen to me a moment. I will spare you all I can, for Aunt Margaret's sake: I do not intend to be more hard with you than my duty demands.'

'Oh, Giles!' raising her eyes at this mild commencement; but they dropped again at the sight of the dark impenetrable face, which certainly had no look of pity on it. She must have felt then, what I should certainly have felt in her place, that any prayers or tears would be wasted on him.

'It would be useless, and worse than useless,' he went on, 'to point out to you the heinousness of your sin,--perhaps I should say crime. All these years you have not faltered in your relentless course; no pity for me and mine has touched your heart; you have allowed our poor lad to wander about the world as an outcast; you have suffered Gladys to carry a heavy and bitter weight in her bosom. Pshaw! why do I reiterate these things? you know them all.'

'Giles, I have loved you in spite of it all! Be merciful to me!' But he went on as though he heard her no more than the rain dripping on the leaves.

'This home is yours no longer; you are no fit companion for my sisters, even if I could bear to shelter a traitor under my roof. If I know my present feelings, I will never willingly see your face again: whether I ever do see it depends on your future conduct.'

'Oh, for pity's sake, Giles!' She was writhing now. In spite of all her sins against him, she had loved him in her perverse way.

'I have found you a home far from here,' he continued in the same chilling manner, 'and to-morrow morning you will be taken to it. The Alnwicks are kind, worthy people--not rich in this world's goods, or what the world would call refined. I was able to help them once when they were in bitter straits: in return they have acceded to my request and have offered you a home.'

'I will not go!' she sobbed pa.s.sionately. 'I would rather you should kill me, Giles, than treat me with such cruelty!'

'They are old,' he went on calmly, 'but more with trouble than years, and they have no one belonging to them, and they promise to treat you like a daughter. You will be in comfort, but not luxury: luxury has been your curse, Etta. A moderate sum will be paid to you yearly for your dress and personal expenses, but if overdrawn or misapplied it will be curtailed or stopped altogether. Your maintenance will be arranged between the Alnwicks and myself, and, unless I give you permission to write,--which is distinctly not my purpose now,--no letter from you will be read or answered, and I forbid all such communication.'

'I cannot--I cannot bear it!' she screamed, springing to her feet; but he waved her back with such a look that her arms dropped to her side.

'No scene, I beg,' in a tone of disgust. 'Let me finish quietly what I have to say.--Miss Garston,' turning to me, 'could you spare Chatty to help my cousin pack her clothes and books? for we shall start early in the morning. Mr. Alnwick has promised to meet us half-way.'

'I can set Chatty at liberty for the day,' was my answer.

'Very well. Etta, you may as well go at once. Your meals will be served in your room. I do not wish you to resume your usual habits: this is my house, not yours. Your only course now must be obedience and submission.

Let your future conduct atone to me for the past, that I may remember without shame that I have a cousin Etta.'

He turned away then, but I could see his face working. He had dearly loved this miserable creature, and had cared for her as though she had been his sister, and he could not leave her without this vague word of hope. Did she understand him, I wonder,--that in the future he might bring himself to forgive her? I heard her weeping bitterly in her room afterwards, and Chatty, in her fussy, good-natured way, trying to comfort her: the girl had a kind heart.

Early in the afternoon Mr. Hamilton joined us in the turret-room.

Directly he came in and sat down by his sister's couch I knew that he meant to tell her everything,--that he thought it best that she should hear it from him.