CHAPTER XV.A REBUFF.
The groom that carried Lady Wentworth’s letter from Sunstead to the Ambletons’ house had been told to wait for an answer to the note addressed to Valentine.
Christina found herself opening the envelope brought to her in her own room an hour or so later, with a new sensation stirring in her veins—that of an excitement that was strongly allied with doubt, and a premonition of disappointment.
Her premonition was fully realized as she glanced at the few curt words written in Valentine’s bold handwriting.
“Mr. Ambleton regrets,” was all this letter contained, “that circumstances will prevent him from calling upon Lady Wentworth; neither does he see any necessity for an interview between himself and Lady Wentworth.”
“Mr. Ambleton regrets,” was all this letter contained, “that circumstances will prevent him from calling upon Lady Wentworth; neither does he see any necessity for an interview between himself and Lady Wentworth.”
Christina put the letter down on her table, and bit her lip sharply.
She found it a bitter fact to swallow that Valentine evidently had determined to have absolutely nothing to do with her, good, bad or indifferent.
Christina would have welcomed his anger, but not his indifference, and she could not argue away the resolute tone of this letter, look at it whichever way she might.
Had she sat down quietly and sorted out her feelings at this moment, she must have been surprised at her attitude toward the man whom she had told herself passionately, a hundred times, that she hated. She might, moreover, have wondered not merely why, but how and when, shehad discovered that Valentine was not a man to be despised but rather one to be desired?
Dynechester was not a very big world, but Christina had, up to now, lived among small influences and powers, and this being the case she was more susceptible to impressions than another might have been.
Like many arrogant, self-opinionated and selfish natures, Christina had her sensitive points.
She had not known how true had been the basis of Valentine Ambleton’s objection to her marriage till after she had become Mark Wentworth’s wife. She had heard, of course, that Mark was supposed to be wild, and that he drank more champagne than was good for him, but she had not realized the disagreeables attached to his name, and the unenviable reputation he had made for himself.
Her sojourn at Sunstead had quickly brought all this to her knowledge, however, and with it had come the knowledge also of the high place accorded to Valentine Ambleton and his sister by the very people who openly despised and disliked her husband.
It was all very well to carry things through with a high hand, to surround herself with the panoply of wealth, and endeavor to startle the world about her with complete subjugation to her undoubted beauty. Mistress, as she was, of the finest property anywhere near Dynechester, Christina found herself absolutely neglected by the few good families scattered about her neighborhood. No one called upon her, at least, no one of any social importance, and the hot anger had surged many a time in her heart when she had driven past the Dower House, and had seen the carriages of these people, who had ignored her, standing outside Grace Ambleton’s door.
“They are a set of Low Church prigs and frumps!” she said to herself, by way of consolation; but this wasnot very satisfactory, and things dragged on pretty heavily for her, until time and chance brought Sacha Ambleton to her side.
But her success with Sacha counted for very little. Sacha, after all, was a very ordinary young man, and his admiration a matter of course.
She had used him to aid her in the task of annoying Grace, because this was the nearest way to touch Valentine, and because she had a restless longing to bring herself in some form or other constantly before the man.
But Christina wanted more than Sacha.
She told herself she would taste real happiness the day that Valentine Ambleton should let her see that he recognized her power, and was ready to do her homage. And she was by no means persuaded that this would never come, not even when she sat biting her lip with vexation over his curt refusal to obey her first summons. A woman of Christina’s caliber has always a store of little tricks in reserve, on which she can fall back in emergency, and she consoled herself now by this remembrance.
What would have delighted her more than all would have been the sight of Valentine coming daily to her house as his brother came, not only because his coming would give her personal satisfaction, but because she was only too sure it would upset Grace altogether, and Christina did not like Grace.
It was Sacha who gave her all the information about Harold’s death and funeral.
The poor lad’s body was, at his mother’s request, carried away from Dynechester, and laid in the same grave with his father.
Valentine held himself almost as a son to Mrs. Pennington in this moment of new and acute grief. He did everything to spare Polly and her mother.
“Val is in his zenith when he can be king over everybody,”Sacha said many times to Christina, who affected to be much annoyed as well as grieved over the proceedings of the moment.
“My mother is so weak, and my sister is worse than my mother. The proper person to do anything for them just now is Mark, since Hubert Kestridge is still abroad. Your brother is, of course, very kind to do so much; but he is usurping my husband’s place all the same.”
“Oh! Val was bound to act for your mother,” said Sacha to this. “As the sad event happened in our house, he could not let anyone else but himself look to things; and, besides, Mark hates funerals, and is not much good in an emergency, is he?”
Christina had flushed at this.
Sacha’s intimate knowledge of her husband was objectionable to her at times. She might confess many things to herself, but she did not care to have those same things told bluntly to her.
She made a parade of mourning, and kept herself shut up in the house those few days that intervened between Harold’s death and the removal of the body up to London.
She had made no further attempts with Valentine, but she had written to her mother and had also written to Grace, offering herself in any capacity. She received no answer to either of these letters.
Grace had indeed hesitated before she left Lady Wentworth’s letter unnoticed; but Valentine had settled matters for her.
“Why bother your head about the woman?” he had said, almost impatiently, when she had asked his advice. “Put the letter in the fire.”
“It looks so rude, Val, to leave it unanswered, doesn’t it?”
Valentine shrugged his shoulders.
“Lady Wentworth has her own share of rudeness.She must be treated occasionally as she treats other people. Besides, her writing to you is all a farce. If she really cared two pins about her mother, or had any grief at that poor lad’s death, she would not have waited and have sent letters asking to be told what to do. She would have acted without any delay or inquiry. Leave the letter unanswered,” Valentine said, a second time, and Grace obeyed him.
She gave little thought to Christina, while poor Mrs. Pennington and Polly were still under her roof, but when they were gone, escorted up to their big, desolate, sorrowful home by Valentine, Grace had time to remember Christina and to ponder on her anew.
Her late close intercourse with Polly only served to make the question of Christina a more difficult one to grasp, yet Grace could not set aside the thought that if one sister could be so unselfish and so sympathetic, another might have her share of such qualities even if in a very minor degree.
Grace recommenced her daily journeys up to Sunstead when her house was empty.
She timed these visits to escape all chance of meeting Mark’s wife, and she never saw Christina, but she frequently saw Mark, and gradually it became Sir Mark’s custom to meet his cousin as she came down from his grandmother’s room and exchange a greeting with her.
Grace could not but be pleased at this show of friendliness, and her womanly heart yearned over the young man who was drifting so palpably into premature age, and ill health, simply through his weakness.
They spoke of nothing confidential in these moments, but they both found a pleasure in merely seeing one another as though nothing had happened to make a breach between them.
It was, of course, not long before Christina becameaware of the fact that her husband was on good terms again with Grace. There was a decided jealousy in Christina’s heart for her husband’s old boyish affection for his Cousin Grace, and this renewal of good fellowship between them annoyed her beyond all measure.
She took Sir Mark to task pretty sharply on the matter.
“Don’t you think it very odd that you should go out of your way to be so amiable to Grace Ambleton, when you know that she ignores my existence?” she asked him one day in her tartest tone.
And Sir Mark had answered her with a laugh.
“If it comes to that, how have you treated Grace, I should like to know? Why, you have done everything you possibly could to make her life miserable since you have come here. And why the deuce you should be so down on Grace, I can’t see.”
“She is Valentine Ambleton’s sister, that is quite enough for me. I hate him, and you know it!” Christina retorted, hot anger flaming in her cheeks.
“Well, fight out your fight with Val, and leave Grace alone. You have done your worst with her, now give her a little peace.”
It was Christina’s turn to laugh now, and she did so in her most sarcastic manner.
“Which means that I am to submit to your friendship with her and take no notice of her personal rudeness to me! Quite charming!”
Sir Mark had recourse to a shrug of his shoulders, and turned away from his wife.
“If you don’t take care, Christina, you will be a d——d bore one of these days,” was his remark, as he lit a cigarette.
Christina looked after his retreating figure with an expression on her face that was not wholly anger. There was a touch of something like pity in her look—the pitywas for herself. She was, in truth, far from being easily accustomed to the fact that already her power over her husband was gone. Such a realization was too humiliating for her to grasp all at once. She had made such a thorough conquest of Mark Wentworth at the beginning that she may be forgiven for imagining her sovereignty would be perpetual.
Her reign had, as a matter of fact, been short with Mark Wentworth.
Constancy was a virtue lacking in him altogether, and he had changed his flirtations as easily as he had changed his garments. Marriage had no more significance to the man than any of these former flirtations, and he had only made Christina his wife because she was a clever woman, and because Valentine had ventured to thwart him, and, by consequence, had driven him to extremes.
Once married, Christina might have worked her influence beneficially had she been so minded, but Christina cared not the toss of a button whether her husband drank himself into an early grave or not. She cared only for such things as concerned herself.
She could and did quarrel with Mark over matters that reflected on her position as his wife, but as to what was good or evil to himself as an individual Christina troubled herself not at all. True, she objected to seeing him in a dazed, or maybe an excited condition, from the effects of drink, but if he were ill afterwards she gave him no pity.
With all this, she had still imagined, up to quite a late date, that she held her old place in his estimation, and when the moment came and proved to her that Mark had as little concern for herself as she had for him, she was simply mortified.
This mortification was the most disagreeable becauseit was impossible for Christina not to see that where she failed another could succeed.
Her bitterness against Grace increased a hundredfold. If she could have devised some means of letting Grace feel the burden of this bitterness, she would have been happy. In this, however, as in all, she knew that Valentine ranged himself between her and his sister; to reach Grace, therefore, she must touch Valentine first, and to approach this man in such a way as to satisfy at once her vanity and her hate, was the one task that Christina set herself to fulfill, if possible, before many more months had gone.