“We breakfasted together.”“Cheerful person, isn’t he?”“No,” I said. “He looked cross and ill.”“Ill!” she said, with a shade of anxiety. “Oh, you only mean dyspeptic.”“Perhaps.”“Well, he always does when he comes from Paris. If you could go into his room, and see the row of photographs on his mantelpiece, you might guess why.”“Pictures of ‘Sole Dieppoise’ and ‘Poulet Victoria aux truffes,’ no doubt,” I hazarded.She doubled up with laughter. “Yes, just that!” she said. “Well, he adores me in his way, and will bring me a new Cartier ring to make up for it—you will see at luncheon.”“He is a perfect husband, then?”“About the same as you will find Christopher. Only Christopher will start by being an exquisite lover, there is nothing he does not know, and Charlie has not an idea of thatpart. Heavens! the dullness of my honeymoon!”“Mrs. Carruthers said all honeymoons were only another parallel to going to the dentist, or being photographed. Necessary evils to be got through for the sake of the results.”“The results!”“Yes; the nice house, and the jewels, and the other things.”“Oh! Yes, I suppose she was right, but if one had married Robert one would have had both.” She did not say both what, but oh! I knew.“You think Mr. Carruthers will make a fair husband, then?” I asked.“You will never really know Christopher. I have been acquainted with him for years. You will never feel he would tell you the whole truth about anything. He is an epicure and an analyst of sensations; I don’t know if he has any gods, he does not believe in them if he has, he believes in no one, and nothing, but perhaps himself. He is violently in love with you for the moment, and he wants tomarry you because he cannot obtain you on any other terms.”“You are flattering,” I said, rather hurt.“I am truthful. You will probably have a delightful time with him, and keep him devoted to you for years, because you are not in love with him, and he will take good care you do not look at any one else. I can imagine if one were in love with Christopher he would break one’s heart, as he has broken poor Alicia Verney’s.”“Oh, but how silly! people don’t have broken hearts now; you are talking like out of a book, dear Lady Ver.”“There are a few cases of broken hearts, but they are not for book reasons—of death and tragedy, etc.; they are because we cannot have what we want, or keep what we have,” and she sighed.We did not speak for a few minutes, then she said quite gaily,“You have made my head better, your touch is extraordinary; in spite of all I likeyou, Snake-girl. You are not found on every gooseberry bush.”We kissed lightly, and I left her and went to my room.Yes, the best thing I can do is to marry Christopher; I care for him so little that the lady in Paris won’t matter to me, even if she is like Sir Charles’s Poulet à la Victoria aux truffes. He is such a gentleman, he will at least be kind to me and refined and considerate; and the Carruthers’ emeralds are divine, and just my stones. I shall have them reset by Cartier. The lace, too, will suit me, and the sables, and I shall have the suite that Mrs. Carruthers used at Branches done up with pale green, and burn all the Early Victorians. And no doubt existence will be full of triumphs and pleasure.But oh! I wish, I wish it were possible to obtain “both.”300,Park Street,Friday night.Luncheonpassed off very well. Sir Charles returned from the City improved in temper, and, as Lady Ver had predicted, presented her with a Cartier jewel. It was a brooch, not a ring, but she was delighted, and purred to him.He was a little late and we were seated, a party of eight, when he came in. They all chaffed him about Paris, and he took it quite good-humouredly—he even seemed pleased. He has no wit, but he looks like a gentleman, and I daresay as husbands go he is suitable.I am getting quite at home in the world, and can talk to any one. I listen and I do not talk much, only when I want to say something that makes them think.A very nice man sat next me to-day, he reminded me of the old generals at Branches. We had quite a war of wits, and it stimulated me.He told me, among other things, when hediscovered who I was, that he had known papa—papa was in the same Guards with him—and that he was the best-looking man of his day. Numbers of women were in love with him, he said, but he was a faithless being and rode away.“He probably enjoyed himself, don’t you think so? and he had the good luck to die in his zenith,” I said.“He was once engaged to Lady Merrenden, you know. She was Lady Sophia Vavasour then, and absolutely devoted to him, but Mrs. Carruthers came between them and carried him off; she was years older than he was, too, and as clever as paint.”“Poor papa seems to have been a weak creature, I fear.”“All men are weak,” he said.“And then he married and left Mrs. Carruthers, I suppose?” I asked. I wanted to hear as much as I could.“Yes—e—s,” said my old Colonel. “I was best man at the wedding——”“And what was she like, my mamma?”“She was the loveliest creature I ever saw,” he said; “as lovely as you, only you are the image of your father, all but the hair, his was fair.”“No one has ever said I was lovely before. Oh! I am so glad if you think so,” I said. It did please me. I have often been told I am attractive and extraordinary, and wonderful, and divine—but never just lovely. He would not say any more about my parents, except they hadn’t asouto live on, and were not very happy; Mrs. Carruthers took care of that.Then, as every one was going, he said: “I am awfully glad to have met you—we must be pals, for the sake of old times,” and he gave me his card for me to keep his address, and told me if ever I wanted a friend to send him a line, Colonel Tom Carden, The Albany.I promised I would.“You might give me away at my wedding,” I said, gaily. “I am thinking of getting married, some day!”“That I will,” he promised, “and, by Jove, the man will be a fortunate fellow.”Lady Ver and I drove after luncheon—we paid some calls, and went in to tea with the Montgomeries, who had just arrived at Brown’s Hotel for a week’s shopping.“Aunt Katherine brings those poor girls up always at this time, and takes them to some impossible old dressmaker of her own, in the day, and to Shakespeare, or a concert, at night, and returns with them equipped in more hideous garments each year. It is positively cruel,” said Lady Ver, as we went up the stairs to theirappartement.There they were, sitting round the tea-table, just as at Tryland. Kirstie and Jean embroidering and knitting, and the other two reading new catalogues of books for their work!!!Lady Ver began to tease them. She asked them all sorts of questions about their new frocks, and suggested they had better go to Paris, once in a way. Lady Katherine was like ice. She strongly disapproved of my being with her niece, one could see.The connection with the family, she hoped, would be ended with my visit to Tryland.Malcolm was arriving in town, too, we gathered, and Lady Ver left a message to ask him to dine to-night.Then we got away.“If one of those lumps of suet had a spark of spirit, it would go straight to the devil,” Lady Ver said, as we went down the stairs. “Think of it! ties and altar-cloths in London! Mercifully they could not dine to-night. I had to ask them, and they generally come once while they are up—the four girls and Aunt Katherine—and it is with the greatest difficulty I can collect four young men for them if they get the least hint who they are to meet. I generally secure a couple of socially budding Jews, because I feel the subscriptions for their charities, which they will pester whoever they do sit next for, are better filched from the Hebrew, than from some pretty needy guardsman. Oh, what a life!”She was so kind to me on the way back; she said she hated leaving me alone on the morrow, and that I must settle now what I was going to do, or she would not go. I said Iwould go to Claridge’s where Mrs. Carruthers and I had always stayed, and remain perfectly quietly alone with Véronique. I could afford it for a week. So we drove there, and made the arrangement.“It is absolutely impossible for you to go on like this, dear child,” she said. “You must have a chaperon; you are far too pretty to stay alone in a hotel. WhatcanI do for you?”I felt so horribly uncomfortable, I was really at my wits’ end. Oh! it is no fun being an adventuress, after all, if you want to keep your friends of the world as well.“Perhaps it won’t matter if I don’t see any one for a few days,” I said. “I will write to Paris; my old Mademoiselle is married there to a flourishing poet, I believe; perhaps she would take me as a paying guest for a little.”“That is very visionary—a French poet! horrible, long-haired, frowsy creature. Impossible! Surely you see how necessary it is for you to marry Christopher as soon as you can, Evangeline, don’t you?” she said, and I was obliged to admit there were reasons.“The truth is, you can’t be the least eccentric, or unconventional, if you are good-looking and unmarried,” she continued; “you may snap your fingers at Society, but if you do, you won’t have a good time, and all the men will either foolishly champion you, or be impertinent to you.”“Oh, I realize it,” I said, and there was a lump in my throat.“I shall write to Christopher to-morrow,” she went on, “and thank him for our outing last night, and I shall say something nice about you, and your loneliness, and that he, as a kind of relation, may go and see you on Sunday, as long as he doesn’t make love to you, and he can take you to the Zoo—don’t see him in your sitting-room. That will give him just the extra fillip, and he will go, and you will be demure, and then, by those stimulating lions’ and tigers’ cages, you can plight your troth. It will be quite respectable. Wire to me at once on Monday, to Sedgwick, and you must come back to Park Street directly I return on Thursday, if it is all settled.”I thanked her as well as I could. She was quite ingenuous, and quite sincere. I should be a welcome guest as Christopher’sfiancée, and there was no use my feeling bitter about it—she was quite right.As I put my hand on Malcolm’s skinny arm going down to the dining-room, the only consolation was my fate has not got to be him! I would rather be anything in the world than married to that!I tried to be agreeable to Sir Charles. We were only a party of six. An old Miss Harpenden, who goes everywhere to play bridge, and Malcolm, and one of Lady Ver’s young men, and me. Sir Charles is absent, and brings himself back; he fiddles with the knives and forks, and sprawls on the table rather, too. He looks at Lady Ver with admiration in his eyes. It is true then, in the intervals of Paris, I suppose, she can make his heart beat.Malcolm made love to me after dinner. We were left to talk when the others sat down to bridge in the little drawing-room.“I missed you so terribly, Miss Travers,” he said, priggishly, “when you left us, that I realized I was extremely attracted by you.”“No, you don’t say so!” I said, innocently. “Could one believe a thing like that.”“Yes,” he said, earnestly. “You may indeed believe it.”“Do not say it so suddenly, then,” I said, turning my head away, so that he could not see how I was laughing. “You see, to a red-haired person like me these compliments go to my head.”“Oh, I do not want to flurry you,” he said, affably. “I know I have been a good deal sought after—perhaps on account of my possessions” (this with arrogant modesty), “but I am willing to lay everything at your feet if you will marry me.”“Everything!” I asked.“Yes, everything.”“You are too good, Mr. Montgomerie—but what would your mother say?”He looked uneasy, and slightly unnerved.“My mother, I fear, has old-fashioned notions—but I am sure if you went to herdressmaker—you—you would look different.”“Should you like me to look different then—you wouldn’t recognize me, you know, if I went to her dressmaker.”“I like you just as you are,” he said, with an air of great condescension.“I am overcome,” I said, humbly; “but—but—what is this story I hear about Miss Angela Grey? A lady, I see in the papers, who dances at—the Gaiety, is it not? Are you sure she will permit you to make this declaration without her knowledge?”He became petrified.“Who has told you about her?” he asked.“No one,” I said. “Jean said your father was angry with you on account of a horse of that name, but I chanced to see it in the list of attractions at the Gaiety—so I conclude it is not a horse, and if you are engaged to her, I don’t think it is quite right of you to try and break my heart.”“Oh, Evangeline—Miss Travers”—he spluttered. “I am greatly attached to you—theother was only a pastime—a—oh! we men you know—young and—and—run after—have our temptations you know. You must think nothing about it. I will never see her again, except just finally to say good-bye. I promise you.”“Oh! I could not do a mean thing like that, Mr. Montgomerie,” I said. “You must not think of behaving so on my account—I am not altogether heartbroken, you know—in fact I rather think of getting married myself.”He bounded up.“Oh! you have deceived me then!” he said, in self-righteous wrath. “After all I said to you that evening at Tryland, and what you promised then! Yes, you have grossly deceived me.”I could not say I had not listened to a word he had said that night, and was utterly unconscious of what I had promised. Even his self-appreciation did not deserve such a blow as this! so I softened my voice, and natural anger at his words, and said quite gently,“Do not be angry. If I have unconsciouslygiven you a wrong impression, I am sorry, but if one came to talking of deceiving, you have deceived me about Miss Grey, so do not let us speak further upon the matter. We are quits. Now, won’t you be friends, as you have always been”—and I put out my hand, and smiled frankly in his face. The mean little lines in it relaxed—he pulled himself together and took my hand, and pressed it warmly. From which I knew there was more in the affair of Angela Grey than met the eye.“Evangeline,” he said. “I shall always love you, but Miss Grey is an estimable young woman, there is not a word to be said against her moral character—and I have promised her my hand in marriage—so perhaps we had better say good-bye.”“Good-bye,” I said, “but I consider I have every reason to feel insulted by your offer, which was not, judging from your subsequent remarks, worth a moment’s thought!”“Oh, but I love you!” he said, and by his face, for the time, this was probably true. So I did not say any more, and we rose and joinedthe bridge players. And I contrived that he should not speak to me again alone before he said good-night.“Did Malcolm propose to you,” Lady Ver asked, as we came up to bed. “I thought I saw a look in his eye at dinner.”I told her he had done it in a kind of way, with a reservation in favour of Miss Angela Grey.“That is too dreadful!” she said. “There is a regular epidemic in some of the Guards’ regiments just now to marry these poor common things with high moral characters, and—indifferent feet! but I should have thought the cuteness of the Scot would have protected Malcolm from their designs. Poor Aunt Katherine!”Claridge’s,Saturday, Nov. 26th.Lady Verwent off early to the station, to catch her train to Northumberland this morning, and I hardly saw her to say good-bye. She seemed out of temper too, on getting a note, she did not tell me whom it was from, or what it was about—only she said immediately after, that I was not to be stupid. “Do not play with Christopher further,” she said, “or you will lose him. He will certainly go and see you to-morrow—he wrote to me this morning in answer to mine of last night—but he says he won’t go to the Zoo—so you will have to see him in your sitting-room after all—he will come about four.”I did not speak.“Evangeline,” she said, “promise me you won’t be a fool——”“I—won’t be a fool,” I said.Then she kissed me, and was off, and a few moments after I also started for Claridge’s.I have a very nice little suite right up at thetop, and if only it were respectable for me, and I could afford it, I could live here very comfortably by myself for a long time.At a quarter to two I was ringing the bell at 200, Carlton House Terrace, Lady Merrenden’s House—with a strange feeling of excitement and interest. Of course it must have been because once she had been engaged to papa. In the second thoughts take to flash I remembered Lord Robert’s words when I talked of coming to London alone at Branches; how he would bring me here, and how she would be kind to me until I could “hunt round.”Oh! it came to me with a sudden stab. He was leaning over Lady Ver in the northern train by now.Such a stately beautiful hall it is—when the doors open—with a fine staircase going each way, and full of splendid pictures, and the whole atmosphere pervaded with an air of refinement and calm.The footmen are tall, and not too young, and even at this time of the year have powdered hair.Lady Merrenden was upstairs in the small drawing-room, and she rose to meet me, a book in her hand, when I was announced.Her manners are so beautiful in her own home; gracious, and not the least patronizing.“I am so glad to see you,” she said. “I hope you won’t be bored, but I have not asked any one to meet you—only my nephew, Torquilstone, is coming—he is a great sufferer, poor fellow, and numbers of faces worry him, at times.”I said I was delighted to see her alone. No look more kind could be expressed in a human countenance than is expressed in hers. She has the same exceptional appearance of breeding that Lord Robert has, tiny ears, and wrists, and head—even dressed as a charwoman, Lady Merrenden would look like a great lady.Very soon we were talking without the least restraint; she did not speak of people, or of very deep things, but it gave one the impression of an elevated mind, and a knowledge of books, and wide thoughts. Oh! I could love her so easily.We had been talking for nearly a quarter of an hour—she had incidentally asked me where I was staying now, and had not seemed surprised or shocked when I said Claridge’s, and by myself.All she said was: “What a lonely little girl! but I daresay it is very restful sometimes to be by oneself, only you must let your friends come and see you, won’t you.”“I don’t think I have any friends,” I said. “You see I have been out so little—but if you would come and see me—oh! I should be so grateful.”“Then you must count me as one of your rare friends!” she said.Nothing could be so rare, or so sweet, as her smile. Fancy papa throwing over this angel for Mrs. Carruthers!! Men are certainly unaccountable creatures.I said I would be too honoured to have her for a friend—and she took my hand.“You bring back the long ago,” she said. “My name is Evangeline, too. Sophia Evangeline—and I sometimes think youmay have been called so in remembrance of me.”What a strange, powerful factor Love must be! Here these two women, Mrs. Carruthers and Lady Merrenden—the very opposites of each other—had evidently both adored papa, and both, according to their natures, had taken an interest in me, in consequence, the child of a third woman, who had superseded them both! Papa must have been extraordinarily fascinating for, to the day of her death, Mrs. Carruthers had his miniature on her table, with a fresh rose beside it—his memory the only soft spot, it seemed, in her hard heart.And this sweet lady’s eyes melted in tenderness when she spoke of the long ago—although she does not know me well enough yet to say anything further. To me papa’s picture is nothing so very wonderful, just a good-looking young guardsman, with eyes shaped like mine, only gray, and light curly hair. He must have had “a way with him” as the servants say.At that moment the Duke of Torquilstone came in. Oh, such a sad sight!A poor hump-backed man, with a strong face and head, and a soured, suspicious, cynical expression. He would evidently have been very tall, but for his deformity, a hump stands out on his back, almost like Mr. Punch. He can’t be much over forty, but he looks far older, his hair is quite gray.Not a line, or an expression in him reminded me of Lord Robert, I am glad to say.Lady Merrenden introduced us, and Lord Merrenden came in then, too, and we all went down to luncheon.It was a rather small table, so we were all near one another, and could talk.The dining-room is immense.“I always have this little table when we are such a small party,” Lady Merrenden said. “It is more cosy, and one does not feel so isolated.”How I agreed with her.The Duke looked at me searchingly often, with his shrewd little eyes. One could not say if it was with approval, or disapproval.Lord Merrenden talked about politics, andthe questions of the day, he has a courteous manner, and all their voices are soft and refined. And nothing could have been more smooth and silent than the service.The luncheon was very simple, and very good, but not half the numbers of rich dishes like at Branches, or Lady Ver’s.There was only one bowl of violets on the table, but the bowl was gold, and a beautiful shape, and the violets nearly as big as pansies. My eyes wandered to the pictures—Gainsborough’s, and Reynolds’, and Romney’s—of stately men and women.“You met my other nephew, Lord Robert, did you not?” Lady Merrenden said, presently. “He told me he had gone to Branches, where I believe you lived.”“Yes,” I said, and oh! it is too humiliating to write, I felt my cheeks get crimson at the mention of Lord Robert’s name. What could she have thought? Can anything be so young ladylike and ridiculous.“He came to the Opera with us the night before last,” I continued. “Mr. Carruthershad a box, and Lady Verningham and I went with them.” Then recollecting how odd this must sound in my deep mourning, I added, “I am so fond of music.”“So is Robert,” she said. “I am sure he must have been pleased to meet a kindred spirit there.”Sweet, charming, kind lady! If she only knew what emotions were really agitating us in that box that night—I fear the actual love of music was the least of them!The Duke, during this conversation, and from the beginning mention of Lord Robert’s name, never took his eyes off my face—it was very disconcerting; his look was clearer now, and it was certainly disapproving.We had coffee upstairs, out of such exquisite Dresden cups, and then Lord Merrenden showed me some miniatures. Finally it happened that the Duke and I were left alone for a minute looking out of a window on to the Mall.His eyes pierced me through and through—well at all events my nose and my ears and my wrists are as fine as Lady Merrenden’s—poormamma’s odd mother does not show in me on the outside—thank goodness. He did not say much, only commonplaces about the view. I felt afraid of him, and rather depressed. I am sure he dislikes me.“May I not drive you somewhere?” my kind hostess asked. “Or, if you have nowhere in particular to go, will you come with me?”I said I should be delighted. An ache of loneliness was creeping over me. I wanted to put off as long as possible getting back to the hotel. I wanted to distract my thoughts from dwelling upon to-morrow, and what I was going to say to Christopher. To-morrow that seems the end of the world.She has beautiful horses, Lady Merrenden, and the whole turn-out, except she herself, is as smart as can be. She really looks a little frumpish out of doors, and perhaps that is why papa went on to Mrs. Carruthers. Goodness and dearness like this do not suit male creatures as well as caprice, it seems.She was so good to me, and talked in the nicest way. I quite forgot I was a homelesswanderer, and arrived at Claridge’s about half past four in almost good spirits.“You won’t forget I am to be one of your friends,” Lady Merrenden said, as I bid her good-bye.“Indeed I won’t,” I replied, and she drove off, smiling at me.I do wonder what she will think of my marriage with Christopher.Now it is night—I have had a miserable, lonely dinner in my sitting-room, Véronique has been most gracious and coddling—she feels Mr. Carruthers in the air, I suppose,—and so I must go to bed.Oh! why am I not happy, and why don’t I think this is a delightful and unusual situation, as I once would have done. I only feel depressed and miserable, and as if I wished Christopher at the bottom of the sea. I have told myself how good-looking he is—and how he attracted me at Branches—but that was before—yes, I may as well write what I was going to—before Lord Robert arrived. Well, he and Lady Ver are talking together on anice sofa by now, I suppose, in a big, well-lit drawing-room, and—oh!—I wish, IwishI had never made any bargain with her—perhaps now in that case—ah well——Sunday afternoon.No! I can’t bear it. All the morning I have been in a fever, first hot and then cold. What will it be like. Oh! I shall faint when he kisses me. And I know he will be dreadful like that, I have seen it in his eye—he will eat me up. Oh! I am sure I shall hate it. No man has ever kissed me in my life, and I can’t judge, but I am sure it is frightful, unless——I feel as if I shall go crazy if I stay here any longer. I can’t, I can’t stop and wait, and face it. I must have some air first. There is a misty fog. I would like to go out and get lost in it, and Iwilltoo! Not get lost, perhaps, but go out in it, and alone. I won’t have even Véronique. I shall go by myself into the Park. It is growing nearly dark, though only three o’clock. I have got an hour. It looks mysterious, and will soothe me, andsuit my mood, and then, when I come in again, I shall perhaps be able to bear it bravely, kisses and all.Claridge’s,Sunday evening, November 27th.I have a great deal to write—and yet it is only a few hours since I shut up this book, and replaced the key on my bracelet.By a quarter past three I was making my way through Grosvenor Square. Everything was misty and blurred, but not actually a thick fog, or any chance of being lost. By the time I got into the Park it had lifted a little. It seemed close and warm, and as I went on I got more depressed. I have never been out alone before; that in itself seemed strange, and ought to have amused me.The image of Christopher kept floating in front of me, his face seemed to have the expression of a satyr. Well, at all events, he would never be able to break my heart like “Alicia Verney’s”—nothing could ever make me care for him. I tried to think of all thegood I was going to get out of the affair, and how really fond I am of Branches.I walked very fast, people loomed at me, and then disappeared in the mist. It was getting almost dusk, and suddenly I felt tired, and sat down on a bench.I had wandered into a side path where there were no chairs. On the bench before mine I I saw, as I passed, a tramp huddled up. I wondered what his thoughts were, and if he felt any more miserable than I did. I daresay I was crouching in a depressed position too.Not many people went by, and every moment it grew darker. In all my life, even on the days when Mrs. Carruthers taunted me about mamma being nobody, I have never felt so wretched. Tears kept rising in my eyes, and I did not even worry to blink them away. Who would see me—and who in the world would care if they did see.Suddenly I was conscious that a very perfect figure was coming out of the mist towards me, but not until he was close to me, andstopping with a start peered into my face, did I recognize it was Lord Robert.“Evangeline!” he exclaimed, in a voice of consternation. “I—what, oh, what is the matter?”No wonder he was surprised. Why he had not taken me for some tramp too, and passed on, I don’t know.“Nothing,” I said, as well as I could, and tried to tilt my hat over my eyes. I had no veil on unfortunately.“I have just been for a walk. Why do you call me Evangeline, and why are you not in Northumberland?”He looked so tall and beautiful, and his face had no expression of contempt or anger now, only distress and sympathy.“I was suddenly put on guard yesterday, and could not get leave,” he said, not answering the first part. “But, oh, I can’t bear to see you sitting here alone, and looking so, so miserable. Mayn’t I take you home? You will catch cold in the damp.”“Oh no, not yet. I won’t go back yet!” I said, hardly realizing what I was saying. He sat down beside me, and slipped his hand into my muff, pressing my clasped fingers—the gentlest, friendliest caress, a child might have made in sympathy. It touched some foolish chord in my nature, some want of self-control inherited from mamma’s ordinary mother, I suppose, anyway the tears poured down my face—I could not help it. Oh, the shame of it! to sit crying in the Park, in front of Lord Robert, of all people in the world, too!“Dear, dear little girl,” he said. “Tell me about it,” and he held my hand in my muff with his strong warm hand.“I—I have nothing to tell,” I said, choking down a sob. “I am ashamed for you to see me like this, only—I am feeling so very miserable.”“Dear child,” he said. “Well, you are not to be—I won’t have it. Has some one been unkind to you—tell me, tell me,” his voice was trembling with distress.“It’s—it’s nothing,” I mumbled.I dared not look at him, I knew his eyebrowswould be up in that way that attracts me so dreadfully.“Listen,” he whispered almost, and bent over me. “I want you to be friends with me so that I can help you. I want you to go back to the time we packed your books together. God knows what has come between us since—it is not of my doing—but I want to take care of you, dear little girl to-day. It—oh, it hurts me so to see you crying here.”“I—would like to be friends,” I said. “I never wanted to be anything else, but I could not help it—and I can’t now.”“Won’t you tell me the reason?” he pleaded. “You have made me so dreadfully unhappy about it. I thought all sorts of things. You know I am a jealous beast.”There can’t in the world be another voice as engaging as Lord Robert’s, and he has a trick of pronouncing words that is too attractive, and the way his mouth goes when he is speaking, showing his perfectly chiselled lips under the little moustache! There is no use pretending! I was sitting there on the bench goingthrough thrills of emotion, and longing for him to take me in his arms. It is too frightful to think of! I must be bad after all.“Now you are going to tell me everything about it,” he commanded. “To begin with, what made you suddenly change at Tryland after the first afternoon, and then what is it that makes you so unhappy now?”“I can’t tell you either,” I said very low. I hoped the common grandmother would not take me as far as doing mean tricks to Lady Ver!“Oh, you have made me wild!” he exclaimed, letting go my hand, and leaning both elbows on his knees, while he pushed his hat to the back of his head. “Perfectly mad with fury and jealousy. That brute Malcolm! and then looking at Campion at dinner, and worst of all, Christopher in the box at ‘Carmen!’ Wicked, naughty little thing! And yet underneath I have a feeling it is for some absurd reason, and not for sheer devilment. If I thought that, I would soon get not to care. I did think it at ‘Carmen.’”“Yes, I know,” I said.“You know what?” he looked up, startled; then he took my hand again, and sat close to me.“Oh, please, please don’t, Lord Robert!” I said.It really made me quiver so with the loveliest feeling I have ever known, that I knew I should never be able to keep my head if he went on.“Please, please, don’t hold my hand,” I said. “It—it makes me not able to behave nicely.”“Darling,” he whispered, “then it shows that you like me, and I sha’n’t let go until you tell me every little bit.”“Oh, I can’t, I can’t!” I felt too tortured, and yet waves of joy were rushing over me. Thatisa word, “darling,” for giving feelings down the back!“Evangeline,” he said, quite sternly, “will you answer this question then—do you like me, or do you hate me? Because, as you must know very well, I love you.”Oh, the wild joy of hearing him say that!What in the world did anything else matter! For a moment there was a singing in my ears, and I forgot everything but our two selves. Then the picture of Christopher waiting for me, with his cold, cynic’s face and eyes blazing with passion, rushed into my vision, and the Duke’s critical, suspicious, disapproving scrutiny, and I felt as if a cry of pain, like a wounded animal, escaped me.“Darling, darling, what is it? Did I hurt your dear little hand?” Lord Robert exclaimed tenderly.“No,” I whispered, brokenly; “but I cannot listen to you. I am going back to Claridge’s now, and I am going to marry Mr. Carruthers.”He dropped my hand as if it stung him.“Good God! Then it is true,” was all he said.In fear I glanced at him—his face looked gray in the quickly gathering mist.“Oh, Robert!” I said in anguish, unable to help myself. “It isn’t because I want to. I—I—oh! probably I love you—but I must, there is nothing else to be done.”“Isn’t there!” he said, all the life and joycoming back to his face. “Do you think I will let Christopher, or any other man in the world, have you now you have confessed that!!” and fortunately there was no one in sight—because he put his arms round my neck, and drew me close, and kissed my lips.Oh, what nonsense people talk of heaven! sitting on clouds and singing psalms and things like that! There can’t be any heaven half so lovely as being kissed by Robert—I felt quite giddy with happiness for several exquisite seconds, then I woke up. It was all absolutely impossible, I knew, and I must keep my head.“Now you belong to me,” he said, letting his arm slip down to my waist; “so you must begin at the beginning, and tell me everything.”“No, no,” I said, struggling feebly to free myself, and feeling so glad he held me tight! “It is impossible all the same, and that only makes it harder. Christopher is coming to see me at four, and I promised Lady Ver I would not be a fool, and would marry him.”“A fig for Lady Ver,” he said, calmly, “ifthat is all; you leave her to me—she never argues with me!”“It is not only that—I—I promised I would never play with you——”“And you certainly never shall,” he said, and I could see a look in his eye as he purposely misconstrued my words, and then he deliberately kissed me again. Oh! I like it better than anything else in the world! How could any one keep their head with Robert quite close, making love like that?“You certainly never—never—shall,” he said again, with a kiss between each word. “I will take care of that! Your time of playing with people is over, Mademoiselle! When you are married to me, I shall fight with any one who dares to look at you!”“But I shall never be married to you, Robert,” I said, though, as I could only be happy for such a few moments, I did not think it necessary to move away out of his arms. How thankful I was to the fog! and no one passing! I shall always adore fogs.“Yes, you will,” he announced, with perfectcertainty; “in about a fortnight, I should think. I can’t and won’t have you staying at Claridge’s by yourself. I shall take you back this afternoon to Aunt Sophia. Only all that we can settle presently. Now, for the moment, I want you to tell me you love me, and that you are sorry for being such a little brute all this time.”“I did not know it until just now—but I think—I probably do love you—Robert!” I said.He was holding my hand in my muff again, the other arm round my waist. Absolutely disgraceful behaviour in the Park; we might have been Susan Jane and Thomas Augustus, and yet I was perfectly happy, and felt it was the only natural way to sit.A figure appeared in the distance—we started apart.“Oh! really, really,” I gasped, “we—you—must be different.”He leant back and laughed.“You sweet darling! Well, come, we will go for a drive in a hansom—we will chooseone without a light inside. Albert Gate is quite close, come!” and he rose, and taking my arm, not offering his to me, like in books, he drew me on down the path.I am sure any one would be terribly shocked to read what I have written, but not so much if they knew Robert, and how utterly adorable he is. And how masterful, and simple, and direct! He does not split straws, or bandy words. I had made the admission that I loved him, and that was enough to go upon!As we walked alone I tried to tell him it was impossible, that I must go back to Christopher, that Lady Ver would think I had broken my word about it. I did not, of course, tell him of her bargain with me over him, but he probably guessed that, because before we got into the hansom even, he had begun to put me through a searching cross-examination as to the reasons for my behaviour at Tryland, and Park Street, and the Opera. I felt like a child with a strong man, and every moment more idiotically happy, and in love with him.He told the cabman to drive to Hammersmith, and then put his arm round my waist again, and held my hand, pulling my glove off backwards first. It is a great big granny muff of sable I have, Mrs. Carruthers’ present on my last birthday. I never thought then to what charming use it would be put!“Now I think we have demolished all your silly little reasons for making me miserable,” he said. “What others have you to bring forward as to why you can’t marry me in a fortnight?”I was silent—I did not know how to say it—the principal reason of all.“Evangeline—darling,” he pleaded. “Oh, why will you make us both unhappy—tell me at least.”“Your brother, the Duke,” I said, very low. “He will never consent to your marrying a person like me with no relations.”He was silent for a second,—then, “My brother is an awfully good fellow,” he said, “but his mind is warped by his infirmity. You must not think hardly of him—he willlove you directly he sees you, like everyone else.”“I saw him yesterday,” I said.Robert was so astonished.“Where did you see him?” he asked.Then I told him about meeting Lady Merrenden, and her asking me to luncheon, and about her having been in love with papa, and about the Duke having looked me through and through with an expression of dislike.“Oh, I see it all!” said Robert, holding me closer. “Aunt Sophia and I are great friends, you know, she has always been like my mother, who died when I was a baby. I told her all about you when I came from Branches, and how I had fallen deeply in love with you at first sight, and that she must help me to see you at Tryland; and she did, and then I thought you had grown to dislike me, so when I came back she guessed I was unhappy about something, and this is her first step to find out how she can do me a good turn—oh! she is a dear!”“Yes, indeed she is,” I said.“Of course she is extra interested in you if she was in love with your father! So that is all right, darling, she must know all about your family, and can tell Torquilstone. Why, we have nothing to fear!”“Oh yes we have!” I said. “I know all the story of what your brother istoquéabout. Lady Ver told me. You see the awkward part is, mamma was really nobody, her father and mother forgot to get married, and although mamma was lovely, and had been beautifully brought up by two old ladies at Brighton, it was a disgrace for papa marrying her—Mrs. Carruthers has often taunted me with this!”“Darling!” he interrupted, and began to kiss me again, and that gave me such feelings I could not collect my thoughts to go on with what I was saying for a few minutes. We both were rather silly—if it is silly to be madly, wildly happy,—and oblivious of every thing else.“I will go straight to Aunt Sophia now, when I take you back to Claridge’s,” he said, presently, when we had got a little calmer.I wonder what kisses do that they make one have that perfectly lovely sensation down the back, just like certain music does, only much, much more so. I thought they would be dreadful things when it was a question of Christopher, but Robert! Oh well, as I said before, I can’t think of any other heaven.“What time is it?” I had sense enough to ask presently.He lit a match, and looked at his watch.“Ten minutes past five,” he exclaimed.“And Christopher was coming about four,” I said, “and if you had not chanced to meet me in the Park, by now I should have been engaged to him, and probably trying to bear his kissing me.”“My God!” said Robert, fiercely, “it makes me rave to think of it,” and he held me so tight for a moment, I could hardly breathe.“You won’t have anyone else’s kisses ever again, in this world, and that I tell you,” he said, through his teeth.“I—I don’t want them,” I whispered,creeping closer to him; “and I never have had any, never any one but you, Robert.”“Darling,” he said, “how that pleases me!”Of course, if I wanted to, I could go on writing pages and pages of all the lovely things we said to one another, but it would sound, even to read to myself, such nonsense, that I can’t, and I couldn’t make the tone of Robert’s voice, or the exquisite fascination of his ways—tender, and adoring, and masterful. It must all stay in my heart; but oh! it is as if a fairy with a wand had passed, and said “bloom” to a winter tree. Numbers of emotions that I had never dreamed about were surging through me—the flood-gates of everything in my soul seemed opening in one rush of love and joy. While we were together, nothing appeared to matter—all barriers melted away.Fate would be sure to be kind to lovers like us!We got back to Claridge’s about six, and Robert would not let me go up to my sitting-room, until he had found out if Christopher had gone.Yes, he had come at four, we discovered, and had waited twenty minutes, and then left, saying he would come again at half-past six.“Then you will write him a note, and give it to the porter for him, saying you are engaged to me, and can’t see him,” Robert said.“No, I can’t do that—I am not engaged to you, and cannot be until your family consent, and are nice to me,” I said.“Darling,” he faltered, and his voice trembled with emotion, “darling, love is between you and me, it is our lives—however that can go, the ways of my family, nothing shall ever separate you from me, or me from you, I swear it. Write to Christopher.”I sat down at a table in the hall and wrote,“Dear Mr. Carruthers,—I am sorry I was out,” then I bit the end of my pen. “Don’t come and see me this evening. I will tell you why in a day or two.“Yours sincerely,“Evangeline Travers.”“Will that do?” I said, and I handed it to Robert, while I addressed the envelope.“Yes,” he said, and waited while I sealed it up, and gave it to the porter. Then, with a surreptitious squeeze of the hand, he left me to go to Lady Merrenden.I have come up to my little sitting-room a changed being. The whole world revolves for me upon another axis, and all within the space of three short hours.Claridge’s,Sunday night, Nov. 27th.Latethis evening, about eight o’clock, when I had re-locked my journal, I got a note from Robert. I was just going to begin my dinner.I tore it open, inside was another, I did not wait to look from whom, I was too eager to read his. I paste it in.“Carlton House Terrace.“My darling,—I have had a long talk with Aunt Sophia, and she is everything that is sweet and kind, but she fears Torquilstone will be a little difficult (I don’t care, nothingshall separate us now). She asks me not to go and see you again to-night, as she thinks itwould be better for you that I should not go to the Hotel so late. Darling, read her note, and you will she how nice she is. I shall come round to-morrow, the moment the beastly stables are finished, about 12 o’clock. Oh! take care of yourself! What a difference to-night and last night! I was feeling horribly miserable and reckless—and to-night! Well, you can guess! I am not half good enough for you, darling, beautiful Queen—but I think I shall know how to make you happy. I love you!“Good night my own,“Robert.”“Do please send me a tiny line by my servant—I have told him to wait.”I have never had a love letter before. What lovely things they are! I felt thrills of delight over bits of it! Of course I see now that I must have been dreadfully in love with Robert all along, only I did not know it quite! I fell into a kind of blissful dream, and then I roused myself up to read Lady Merrenden’s. I sha’n’t put hers in too, it fills up too much, and I can’t shut the clasp of my journal—it is aperfectly sweet little letter, just saying Robert had told her the news, and that she was prepared to welcome me as her dearest niece, and to do all she could for us. She hoped I would not think her very tiresome and old fashioned suggesting Robert had better not see me again to-night, and if it would not inconvenience me, she would herself come round to-morrow morning, and discuss what was best to be done.Véronique said Lord Robert’s valet was waiting outside the door, so I flew to my table, and began to write. My hand trembled so I made a blot, and had to tear that sheet up, then I wrote another. Just a little word. I was frightened, I couldn’t say loving things in a letter, I had not even spoken many to him—yet.“I loved your note,” I began, “and I think Lady Merrenden is quite right. I will be here at twelve, and very pleased to see you.” I wanted to say I loved him, and thought twelve o’clock a long way off, but of course one could not write such things as that—so I ended with just “Love fromEvangeline.”Then I read it over, and it did sound “missish” and silly—however, with the man waiting there in the passage, and Véronique fussing in and out of my bedroom, besides the waiters bringing up my dinner, I could not go tearing up sheets, and writing others, it looked so flurried, so it was put into an envelope. Then, in one of the seconds I was alone, I nipped off a violet from a bunch on the table, and pushed it in too. I wonder if he will think it sentimental of me! When I had written the name, I had not an idea where to address it. His was written from Carlton House Terrace, but he was evidently not there now, as his servant had brought it. I felt so nervous and excited, it was too ridiculous—I am very calm as a rule. I called the man, and asked him where was his lordship now? I did not like to say I was ignorant of where he lived.“His lordship is at Vavasour House, Madame,” he said, respectfully, but with the faintest shade of surprise that I should not know. “His lordship dines at home this evening with his grace.”I scribbled a note to Lady Merrenden—I would be delighted to see her in the morning at whatever time suited her. I would not go out at all, and I thanked her. It was much easier to write sweet things to her than to Robert.When I was alone I could not eat. Véronique came in to try and persuade me. I looked so very pale, she said, she feared I had taken cold. She was in one of her “old mother” moods, when she drops the third person sometimes, and calls me “mon enfant.”“Oh, Véronique, I have not got a cold, I am only wildly happy!” I said.“Mademoiselle is doubtlessfiancéeto Mr. Carruthers.Oh! mon enfant adorée,” she cried, “que je suis contente!”“Gracious no!” I exclaimed. This brought me back to Christopher with a start. What would he say when he heard?“No, Véronique, to some one much nicer—Lord Robert Vavasour.”Véronique was frightfully interested—Mr. Carruthers she would have preferred for meshe admitted, as being more solid—morerangé—plus à la fin de ses bêtises, but, no doubt, “Milor” was charming too, and for certain one day Mademoiselle would be Duchesse. In the meanwhile what kind of coronet would Mademoiselle have on her trousseau?I was obliged to explain that I should not have any—or any trousseau for an indefinite time, as nothing was settled yet. This damped her a little.“Un frère de Duc, et pas de couronne!” After seven years in England she was yet unable to understand these strange habitudes, she said.She insisted upon putting me to bed directly after dinner—“to be prettier for Milordemain!” and then, when she had tucked me up, and was turning out the light in the centre of the room she looked back—“Mademoiselle is too beautiful like that,” she said, as if it slipped from her—“Mon Dieu! il ne s’embêterai pas, le Monsieur!”Claridge’s,Monday morning.I wonderhow I lived before I met Robert. I wonder what use were the days. Oh! and I wonder, I wonder if the Duke continues to be obdurate about me if I shall ever have the strength of mind to part from him so as not to spoil his future.Such a short time ago—not yet four weeks—since I was still at Branches, and wondering what made the clock go round—the great big clock of life.Oh, now I know! It is being in love—frightfully in love like we are. I must try to keep my head though, and remember all the remarks of Lady Ver about things and men. Fighters all of them, and they must never feel quite sure. It will be dreadfully difficult to tease Robert, because he is so direct and simple; but I must try I suppose. Perhaps being so very pretty as I am, and having all the male creatures looking at me with interest will do, and be enough to keep himworried, and I won’t have to be tiresome myself. I hope so, because I really do love him so extremely, I would like to let myself go and be as sweet as I want to.I am doing all the things I thought perfectly silly to hear of before. I kissed his letter, and slept with it on the pillow beside me, and this morning woke at six and turned on the electric light to read it again! The part where the “Darling” comes is quite blurry I see in daylight; that is where I kissed most I know!I seem to be numb to everything else. Whether Lady Ver is angry or not does not bother me. I did play fair. She could not expect me to go on pretending when Robert had said straight out he loved me. But I am sure she will be angry, though, and probably rather spiteful about it.I will write her the simple truth in a day or two, when we see how things go. She will guess by Robert not going to Sedgwick.Claridge’s,Monday afternoon.Athalf past eleven this morning Lady Merrenden came, and the room was all full of flowers that Robert had sent—bunches and bunches of violets and gardenias. She kissed me, and held me tight for a moment, and we did not speak. Then she said in a voice that trembled a little,“Robert is so very dear to me—almost my own child —that I want him to be happy, and you, too, Evangeline—I may call you that, may not I?”I squeezed her hand.“You are the echo of my youth, when 1, too, knew the wild springtime of love. So dear, I need not tell you that you may count upon my doing what I can for you both.”Then we talked and talked.“I must admit,” she said at last, “I was prejudiced in your favour for your dear father’s sake, but in any case my opinion of Robert’s judgement is so high, I would havebeen prepared to find you charming even without that. He has the rarest qualities, he is the truest, most untarnished soul in this world.”“I don’t say,” she went on, “that he is not just as the other young men of his age and class; he is no Galahad, as no one can be with truth who is human and lives in the world. And I daresay kind friends will tell you stories of actresses and other diversions, but I who know him, tell you you have won the best and greatest darling in London.”“Oh, I am sure of it!” I said. “I don’t know why he loves me so much, he has seen me so little; but it began from the very first minute I think with both of us. He is such a nice shape!”She laughed. Then she asked me if she was right in supposing all thesecontretempswe had had were the doing of Lady Ver. “You need not answer, dear,” she said. “I know Ianthe—she is in love with Robert herself, she can’t help it; she means no harm, but she often gets these attacks, and they passoff. I think she is devoted to Sir Charles really.”“Y-e-s,” I said.“It is a queer world we live in, child,” she continued, “and true love and suitability of character are such a rare combination, but, from what I can judge, you and Robert possess them.”“Oh, how dear of you to say so!” I exclaimed. “You don’t think Imustbe bad, then, because of my colouring?”“What a ridiculous idea, you sweet child!” she laughed. “Who has told you that?”“Oh! Mrs. Carruthers always said so—and—and—the old gentlemen, and—even Mr. Carruthers hinted I probably had some odd qualities. But you do think I shall be able to be fairly good, don’t you?”She was amused I could see, but I was serious.“I think you probably might have been a little wicked if you had married a man like Mr. Carruthers,” she said, smiling; “but with Robert I am sure you will be good. He willnever leave you a moment, and he will love you so much you won’t have time for anything else.”“Oh! that is what I shall like—being loved,” I said.“I think all women like that,” she sighed. “We could all of us be good if the person we love went on being demonstrative. It is the cold matter-of-fact devotion that kills love, and makes one want to look elsewhere to find it again.”Then we talked of possibilities about the Duke. I told her I knew histoquade, and she, of course, was fully acquainted with mamma’s history.“I must tell you, dear, I fear he will be difficult,” she said. “He is a strangely prejudiced person, and obstinate to a degree, and he worships Robert, as we all do.”I would not ask her if the Duke had taken a dislike to me, because Iknewhe had.“I asked you to meet him on Saturday on purpose,” she continued. “I felt sure yourcharm would impress him, as it had done me, and as it did my husband—but I wonder now if it would have been better to wait. He said, after you were gone, that you were much too beautiful for the peace of any family, and he pitied Mr. Carruthers if he married you! I don’t mean to hurt you, child. I am only telling you everything, so that we may consult how best to act.”“Yes, I know,” I said, and I squeezed her hand again; she does not put out claws like Lady Ver.“How did he know anything about Mr. Carruthers?” I asked, “or me—or anything?”She looked ashamed.“One can never tell how he hears things. He was intensely interested to meet you, and seemed to be acquainted with more of the affair than I am. I almost fear he must obtain his information from the servants.”“Oh, does not that show the housemaid in him! Poor fellow!” I said, “He can’t helpit, then, any more than I could help crying yesterday before Robert in the Park. Of course we would neither of us have done these things if it were not for thetachein our backgrounds, only, fortunately for me, mine wasn’t a housemaid, and was one generation further back, so I would not be likely to have any of those tricks.”She leant back in her chair and laughed. “You quaint, quaint child, Evangeline,” she said.Just then it was twelve o’clock and Robert came in.Oh! talk of hearts beating. If mine is going to go on jumping like this every time Robert enters a room, I shall get a disease in it in less than a year.He looked too intensely attractive; he was not in London clothes, just serge things and a Guard’s tie, and his face was beaming, and his eyes shining like blue stars.We behaved nicely; he only kissed my hand, and Lady Merrenden looked away at the clock even for that! She has tact!“Isn’t my Evangeline a darling, Aunt Sophia? he said. “And don’t you love her red hair?”“It is beautiful,” said Lady Merrenden.“When you leave us alone I am going to pull it all down,” and he whispered, “darling, I love you,” so close, that his lips touched my ear, while he pretended he was not doing anything! I say again, Robert has ways which would charm a stone image.“How was Torquilstone last night?” Lady Merrenden asked. “And did you tell him anything?”“Not a word,” said Robert. “I wanted to wait and consult you both which would be best. Shall I go to him at once, or shall he be made to meet my Evangeline again and let her fascinate him, as she is bound to do, and then tell him?”“Oh, tell him straight!” I exclaimed, remembering his proclivities about the servants, and that Véronique knows. “Then he cannot ever say we have deceived him.”“That is how I feel,” said Robert.“You take Evangeline to lunch, Aunt Sophia, and I will go back and feed with him and tell him, and then come to you after.”“Yes, that will be best,” she said, and it was settled that she should come in again and fetch me in an hour, when Robert should leave to go to Vavasour House. He went with her to the lift, and then he came back.No—even in this locked book I am not going to write of that hour—it was too divine. If I had thought just sitting in the Park was heaven, I now know there are degrees of heaven, and that Robert is teaching me up towards the seventh.Monday afternoon (continued).I forgotto say a note came from Christopher by this morning’s post—it made me laugh when I read it, then it went out of my head, but when Lady Merrenden returned for me, and we were more or less sane again—Robert and I—I thought of it; so apparently did he.
“We breakfasted together.”
“Cheerful person, isn’t he?”
“No,” I said. “He looked cross and ill.”
“Ill!” she said, with a shade of anxiety. “Oh, you only mean dyspeptic.”
“Perhaps.”
“Well, he always does when he comes from Paris. If you could go into his room, and see the row of photographs on his mantelpiece, you might guess why.”
“Pictures of ‘Sole Dieppoise’ and ‘Poulet Victoria aux truffes,’ no doubt,” I hazarded.
She doubled up with laughter. “Yes, just that!” she said. “Well, he adores me in his way, and will bring me a new Cartier ring to make up for it—you will see at luncheon.”
“He is a perfect husband, then?”
“About the same as you will find Christopher. Only Christopher will start by being an exquisite lover, there is nothing he does not know, and Charlie has not an idea of thatpart. Heavens! the dullness of my honeymoon!”
“Mrs. Carruthers said all honeymoons were only another parallel to going to the dentist, or being photographed. Necessary evils to be got through for the sake of the results.”
“The results!”
“Yes; the nice house, and the jewels, and the other things.”
“Oh! Yes, I suppose she was right, but if one had married Robert one would have had both.” She did not say both what, but oh! I knew.
“You think Mr. Carruthers will make a fair husband, then?” I asked.
“You will never really know Christopher. I have been acquainted with him for years. You will never feel he would tell you the whole truth about anything. He is an epicure and an analyst of sensations; I don’t know if he has any gods, he does not believe in them if he has, he believes in no one, and nothing, but perhaps himself. He is violently in love with you for the moment, and he wants tomarry you because he cannot obtain you on any other terms.”
“You are flattering,” I said, rather hurt.
“I am truthful. You will probably have a delightful time with him, and keep him devoted to you for years, because you are not in love with him, and he will take good care you do not look at any one else. I can imagine if one were in love with Christopher he would break one’s heart, as he has broken poor Alicia Verney’s.”
“Oh, but how silly! people don’t have broken hearts now; you are talking like out of a book, dear Lady Ver.”
“There are a few cases of broken hearts, but they are not for book reasons—of death and tragedy, etc.; they are because we cannot have what we want, or keep what we have,” and she sighed.
We did not speak for a few minutes, then she said quite gaily,
“You have made my head better, your touch is extraordinary; in spite of all I likeyou, Snake-girl. You are not found on every gooseberry bush.”
We kissed lightly, and I left her and went to my room.
Yes, the best thing I can do is to marry Christopher; I care for him so little that the lady in Paris won’t matter to me, even if she is like Sir Charles’s Poulet à la Victoria aux truffes. He is such a gentleman, he will at least be kind to me and refined and considerate; and the Carruthers’ emeralds are divine, and just my stones. I shall have them reset by Cartier. The lace, too, will suit me, and the sables, and I shall have the suite that Mrs. Carruthers used at Branches done up with pale green, and burn all the Early Victorians. And no doubt existence will be full of triumphs and pleasure.
But oh! I wish, I wish it were possible to obtain “both.”
300,Park Street,
Friday night.
Luncheonpassed off very well. Sir Charles returned from the City improved in temper, and, as Lady Ver had predicted, presented her with a Cartier jewel. It was a brooch, not a ring, but she was delighted, and purred to him.
He was a little late and we were seated, a party of eight, when he came in. They all chaffed him about Paris, and he took it quite good-humouredly—he even seemed pleased. He has no wit, but he looks like a gentleman, and I daresay as husbands go he is suitable.
I am getting quite at home in the world, and can talk to any one. I listen and I do not talk much, only when I want to say something that makes them think.
A very nice man sat next me to-day, he reminded me of the old generals at Branches. We had quite a war of wits, and it stimulated me.
He told me, among other things, when hediscovered who I was, that he had known papa—papa was in the same Guards with him—and that he was the best-looking man of his day. Numbers of women were in love with him, he said, but he was a faithless being and rode away.
“He probably enjoyed himself, don’t you think so? and he had the good luck to die in his zenith,” I said.
“He was once engaged to Lady Merrenden, you know. She was Lady Sophia Vavasour then, and absolutely devoted to him, but Mrs. Carruthers came between them and carried him off; she was years older than he was, too, and as clever as paint.”
“Poor papa seems to have been a weak creature, I fear.”
“All men are weak,” he said.
“And then he married and left Mrs. Carruthers, I suppose?” I asked. I wanted to hear as much as I could.
“Yes—e—s,” said my old Colonel. “I was best man at the wedding——”
“And what was she like, my mamma?”
“She was the loveliest creature I ever saw,” he said; “as lovely as you, only you are the image of your father, all but the hair, his was fair.”
“No one has ever said I was lovely before. Oh! I am so glad if you think so,” I said. It did please me. I have often been told I am attractive and extraordinary, and wonderful, and divine—but never just lovely. He would not say any more about my parents, except they hadn’t asouto live on, and were not very happy; Mrs. Carruthers took care of that.
Then, as every one was going, he said: “I am awfully glad to have met you—we must be pals, for the sake of old times,” and he gave me his card for me to keep his address, and told me if ever I wanted a friend to send him a line, Colonel Tom Carden, The Albany.
I promised I would.
“You might give me away at my wedding,” I said, gaily. “I am thinking of getting married, some day!”
“That I will,” he promised, “and, by Jove, the man will be a fortunate fellow.”
Lady Ver and I drove after luncheon—we paid some calls, and went in to tea with the Montgomeries, who had just arrived at Brown’s Hotel for a week’s shopping.
“Aunt Katherine brings those poor girls up always at this time, and takes them to some impossible old dressmaker of her own, in the day, and to Shakespeare, or a concert, at night, and returns with them equipped in more hideous garments each year. It is positively cruel,” said Lady Ver, as we went up the stairs to theirappartement.
There they were, sitting round the tea-table, just as at Tryland. Kirstie and Jean embroidering and knitting, and the other two reading new catalogues of books for their work!!!
Lady Ver began to tease them. She asked them all sorts of questions about their new frocks, and suggested they had better go to Paris, once in a way. Lady Katherine was like ice. She strongly disapproved of my being with her niece, one could see.
The connection with the family, she hoped, would be ended with my visit to Tryland.Malcolm was arriving in town, too, we gathered, and Lady Ver left a message to ask him to dine to-night.
Then we got away.
“If one of those lumps of suet had a spark of spirit, it would go straight to the devil,” Lady Ver said, as we went down the stairs. “Think of it! ties and altar-cloths in London! Mercifully they could not dine to-night. I had to ask them, and they generally come once while they are up—the four girls and Aunt Katherine—and it is with the greatest difficulty I can collect four young men for them if they get the least hint who they are to meet. I generally secure a couple of socially budding Jews, because I feel the subscriptions for their charities, which they will pester whoever they do sit next for, are better filched from the Hebrew, than from some pretty needy guardsman. Oh, what a life!”
She was so kind to me on the way back; she said she hated leaving me alone on the morrow, and that I must settle now what I was going to do, or she would not go. I said Iwould go to Claridge’s where Mrs. Carruthers and I had always stayed, and remain perfectly quietly alone with Véronique. I could afford it for a week. So we drove there, and made the arrangement.
“It is absolutely impossible for you to go on like this, dear child,” she said. “You must have a chaperon; you are far too pretty to stay alone in a hotel. WhatcanI do for you?”
I felt so horribly uncomfortable, I was really at my wits’ end. Oh! it is no fun being an adventuress, after all, if you want to keep your friends of the world as well.
“Perhaps it won’t matter if I don’t see any one for a few days,” I said. “I will write to Paris; my old Mademoiselle is married there to a flourishing poet, I believe; perhaps she would take me as a paying guest for a little.”
“That is very visionary—a French poet! horrible, long-haired, frowsy creature. Impossible! Surely you see how necessary it is for you to marry Christopher as soon as you can, Evangeline, don’t you?” she said, and I was obliged to admit there were reasons.
“The truth is, you can’t be the least eccentric, or unconventional, if you are good-looking and unmarried,” she continued; “you may snap your fingers at Society, but if you do, you won’t have a good time, and all the men will either foolishly champion you, or be impertinent to you.”
“Oh, I realize it,” I said, and there was a lump in my throat.
“I shall write to Christopher to-morrow,” she went on, “and thank him for our outing last night, and I shall say something nice about you, and your loneliness, and that he, as a kind of relation, may go and see you on Sunday, as long as he doesn’t make love to you, and he can take you to the Zoo—don’t see him in your sitting-room. That will give him just the extra fillip, and he will go, and you will be demure, and then, by those stimulating lions’ and tigers’ cages, you can plight your troth. It will be quite respectable. Wire to me at once on Monday, to Sedgwick, and you must come back to Park Street directly I return on Thursday, if it is all settled.”
I thanked her as well as I could. She was quite ingenuous, and quite sincere. I should be a welcome guest as Christopher’sfiancée, and there was no use my feeling bitter about it—she was quite right.
As I put my hand on Malcolm’s skinny arm going down to the dining-room, the only consolation was my fate has not got to be him! I would rather be anything in the world than married to that!
I tried to be agreeable to Sir Charles. We were only a party of six. An old Miss Harpenden, who goes everywhere to play bridge, and Malcolm, and one of Lady Ver’s young men, and me. Sir Charles is absent, and brings himself back; he fiddles with the knives and forks, and sprawls on the table rather, too. He looks at Lady Ver with admiration in his eyes. It is true then, in the intervals of Paris, I suppose, she can make his heart beat.
Malcolm made love to me after dinner. We were left to talk when the others sat down to bridge in the little drawing-room.
“I missed you so terribly, Miss Travers,” he said, priggishly, “when you left us, that I realized I was extremely attracted by you.”
“No, you don’t say so!” I said, innocently. “Could one believe a thing like that.”
“Yes,” he said, earnestly. “You may indeed believe it.”
“Do not say it so suddenly, then,” I said, turning my head away, so that he could not see how I was laughing. “You see, to a red-haired person like me these compliments go to my head.”
“Oh, I do not want to flurry you,” he said, affably. “I know I have been a good deal sought after—perhaps on account of my possessions” (this with arrogant modesty), “but I am willing to lay everything at your feet if you will marry me.”
“Everything!” I asked.
“Yes, everything.”
“You are too good, Mr. Montgomerie—but what would your mother say?”
He looked uneasy, and slightly unnerved.
“My mother, I fear, has old-fashioned notions—but I am sure if you went to herdressmaker—you—you would look different.”
“Should you like me to look different then—you wouldn’t recognize me, you know, if I went to her dressmaker.”
“I like you just as you are,” he said, with an air of great condescension.
“I am overcome,” I said, humbly; “but—but—what is this story I hear about Miss Angela Grey? A lady, I see in the papers, who dances at—the Gaiety, is it not? Are you sure she will permit you to make this declaration without her knowledge?”
He became petrified.
“Who has told you about her?” he asked.
“No one,” I said. “Jean said your father was angry with you on account of a horse of that name, but I chanced to see it in the list of attractions at the Gaiety—so I conclude it is not a horse, and if you are engaged to her, I don’t think it is quite right of you to try and break my heart.”
“Oh, Evangeline—Miss Travers”—he spluttered. “I am greatly attached to you—theother was only a pastime—a—oh! we men you know—young and—and—run after—have our temptations you know. You must think nothing about it. I will never see her again, except just finally to say good-bye. I promise you.”
“Oh! I could not do a mean thing like that, Mr. Montgomerie,” I said. “You must not think of behaving so on my account—I am not altogether heartbroken, you know—in fact I rather think of getting married myself.”
He bounded up.
“Oh! you have deceived me then!” he said, in self-righteous wrath. “After all I said to you that evening at Tryland, and what you promised then! Yes, you have grossly deceived me.”
I could not say I had not listened to a word he had said that night, and was utterly unconscious of what I had promised. Even his self-appreciation did not deserve such a blow as this! so I softened my voice, and natural anger at his words, and said quite gently,
“Do not be angry. If I have unconsciouslygiven you a wrong impression, I am sorry, but if one came to talking of deceiving, you have deceived me about Miss Grey, so do not let us speak further upon the matter. We are quits. Now, won’t you be friends, as you have always been”—and I put out my hand, and smiled frankly in his face. The mean little lines in it relaxed—he pulled himself together and took my hand, and pressed it warmly. From which I knew there was more in the affair of Angela Grey than met the eye.
“Evangeline,” he said. “I shall always love you, but Miss Grey is an estimable young woman, there is not a word to be said against her moral character—and I have promised her my hand in marriage—so perhaps we had better say good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” I said, “but I consider I have every reason to feel insulted by your offer, which was not, judging from your subsequent remarks, worth a moment’s thought!”
“Oh, but I love you!” he said, and by his face, for the time, this was probably true. So I did not say any more, and we rose and joinedthe bridge players. And I contrived that he should not speak to me again alone before he said good-night.
“Did Malcolm propose to you,” Lady Ver asked, as we came up to bed. “I thought I saw a look in his eye at dinner.”
I told her he had done it in a kind of way, with a reservation in favour of Miss Angela Grey.
“That is too dreadful!” she said. “There is a regular epidemic in some of the Guards’ regiments just now to marry these poor common things with high moral characters, and—indifferent feet! but I should have thought the cuteness of the Scot would have protected Malcolm from their designs. Poor Aunt Katherine!”
Claridge’s,
Saturday, Nov. 26th.
Lady Verwent off early to the station, to catch her train to Northumberland this morning, and I hardly saw her to say good-bye. She seemed out of temper too, on getting a note, she did not tell me whom it was from, or what it was about—only she said immediately after, that I was not to be stupid. “Do not play with Christopher further,” she said, “or you will lose him. He will certainly go and see you to-morrow—he wrote to me this morning in answer to mine of last night—but he says he won’t go to the Zoo—so you will have to see him in your sitting-room after all—he will come about four.”
I did not speak.
“Evangeline,” she said, “promise me you won’t be a fool——”
“I—won’t be a fool,” I said.
Then she kissed me, and was off, and a few moments after I also started for Claridge’s.
I have a very nice little suite right up at thetop, and if only it were respectable for me, and I could afford it, I could live here very comfortably by myself for a long time.
At a quarter to two I was ringing the bell at 200, Carlton House Terrace, Lady Merrenden’s House—with a strange feeling of excitement and interest. Of course it must have been because once she had been engaged to papa. In the second thoughts take to flash I remembered Lord Robert’s words when I talked of coming to London alone at Branches; how he would bring me here, and how she would be kind to me until I could “hunt round.”
Oh! it came to me with a sudden stab. He was leaning over Lady Ver in the northern train by now.
Such a stately beautiful hall it is—when the doors open—with a fine staircase going each way, and full of splendid pictures, and the whole atmosphere pervaded with an air of refinement and calm.
The footmen are tall, and not too young, and even at this time of the year have powdered hair.
Lady Merrenden was upstairs in the small drawing-room, and she rose to meet me, a book in her hand, when I was announced.
Her manners are so beautiful in her own home; gracious, and not the least patronizing.
“I am so glad to see you,” she said. “I hope you won’t be bored, but I have not asked any one to meet you—only my nephew, Torquilstone, is coming—he is a great sufferer, poor fellow, and numbers of faces worry him, at times.”
I said I was delighted to see her alone. No look more kind could be expressed in a human countenance than is expressed in hers. She has the same exceptional appearance of breeding that Lord Robert has, tiny ears, and wrists, and head—even dressed as a charwoman, Lady Merrenden would look like a great lady.
Very soon we were talking without the least restraint; she did not speak of people, or of very deep things, but it gave one the impression of an elevated mind, and a knowledge of books, and wide thoughts. Oh! I could love her so easily.
We had been talking for nearly a quarter of an hour—she had incidentally asked me where I was staying now, and had not seemed surprised or shocked when I said Claridge’s, and by myself.
All she said was: “What a lonely little girl! but I daresay it is very restful sometimes to be by oneself, only you must let your friends come and see you, won’t you.”
“I don’t think I have any friends,” I said. “You see I have been out so little—but if you would come and see me—oh! I should be so grateful.”
“Then you must count me as one of your rare friends!” she said.
Nothing could be so rare, or so sweet, as her smile. Fancy papa throwing over this angel for Mrs. Carruthers!! Men are certainly unaccountable creatures.
I said I would be too honoured to have her for a friend—and she took my hand.
“You bring back the long ago,” she said. “My name is Evangeline, too. Sophia Evangeline—and I sometimes think youmay have been called so in remembrance of me.”
What a strange, powerful factor Love must be! Here these two women, Mrs. Carruthers and Lady Merrenden—the very opposites of each other—had evidently both adored papa, and both, according to their natures, had taken an interest in me, in consequence, the child of a third woman, who had superseded them both! Papa must have been extraordinarily fascinating for, to the day of her death, Mrs. Carruthers had his miniature on her table, with a fresh rose beside it—his memory the only soft spot, it seemed, in her hard heart.
And this sweet lady’s eyes melted in tenderness when she spoke of the long ago—although she does not know me well enough yet to say anything further. To me papa’s picture is nothing so very wonderful, just a good-looking young guardsman, with eyes shaped like mine, only gray, and light curly hair. He must have had “a way with him” as the servants say.
At that moment the Duke of Torquilstone came in. Oh, such a sad sight!
A poor hump-backed man, with a strong face and head, and a soured, suspicious, cynical expression. He would evidently have been very tall, but for his deformity, a hump stands out on his back, almost like Mr. Punch. He can’t be much over forty, but he looks far older, his hair is quite gray.
Not a line, or an expression in him reminded me of Lord Robert, I am glad to say.
Lady Merrenden introduced us, and Lord Merrenden came in then, too, and we all went down to luncheon.
It was a rather small table, so we were all near one another, and could talk.
The dining-room is immense.
“I always have this little table when we are such a small party,” Lady Merrenden said. “It is more cosy, and one does not feel so isolated.”
How I agreed with her.
The Duke looked at me searchingly often, with his shrewd little eyes. One could not say if it was with approval, or disapproval.
Lord Merrenden talked about politics, andthe questions of the day, he has a courteous manner, and all their voices are soft and refined. And nothing could have been more smooth and silent than the service.
The luncheon was very simple, and very good, but not half the numbers of rich dishes like at Branches, or Lady Ver’s.
There was only one bowl of violets on the table, but the bowl was gold, and a beautiful shape, and the violets nearly as big as pansies. My eyes wandered to the pictures—Gainsborough’s, and Reynolds’, and Romney’s—of stately men and women.
“You met my other nephew, Lord Robert, did you not?” Lady Merrenden said, presently. “He told me he had gone to Branches, where I believe you lived.”
“Yes,” I said, and oh! it is too humiliating to write, I felt my cheeks get crimson at the mention of Lord Robert’s name. What could she have thought? Can anything be so young ladylike and ridiculous.
“He came to the Opera with us the night before last,” I continued. “Mr. Carruthershad a box, and Lady Verningham and I went with them.” Then recollecting how odd this must sound in my deep mourning, I added, “I am so fond of music.”
“So is Robert,” she said. “I am sure he must have been pleased to meet a kindred spirit there.”
Sweet, charming, kind lady! If she only knew what emotions were really agitating us in that box that night—I fear the actual love of music was the least of them!
The Duke, during this conversation, and from the beginning mention of Lord Robert’s name, never took his eyes off my face—it was very disconcerting; his look was clearer now, and it was certainly disapproving.
We had coffee upstairs, out of such exquisite Dresden cups, and then Lord Merrenden showed me some miniatures. Finally it happened that the Duke and I were left alone for a minute looking out of a window on to the Mall.
His eyes pierced me through and through—well at all events my nose and my ears and my wrists are as fine as Lady Merrenden’s—poormamma’s odd mother does not show in me on the outside—thank goodness. He did not say much, only commonplaces about the view. I felt afraid of him, and rather depressed. I am sure he dislikes me.
“May I not drive you somewhere?” my kind hostess asked. “Or, if you have nowhere in particular to go, will you come with me?”
I said I should be delighted. An ache of loneliness was creeping over me. I wanted to put off as long as possible getting back to the hotel. I wanted to distract my thoughts from dwelling upon to-morrow, and what I was going to say to Christopher. To-morrow that seems the end of the world.
She has beautiful horses, Lady Merrenden, and the whole turn-out, except she herself, is as smart as can be. She really looks a little frumpish out of doors, and perhaps that is why papa went on to Mrs. Carruthers. Goodness and dearness like this do not suit male creatures as well as caprice, it seems.
She was so good to me, and talked in the nicest way. I quite forgot I was a homelesswanderer, and arrived at Claridge’s about half past four in almost good spirits.
“You won’t forget I am to be one of your friends,” Lady Merrenden said, as I bid her good-bye.
“Indeed I won’t,” I replied, and she drove off, smiling at me.
I do wonder what she will think of my marriage with Christopher.
Now it is night—I have had a miserable, lonely dinner in my sitting-room, Véronique has been most gracious and coddling—she feels Mr. Carruthers in the air, I suppose,—and so I must go to bed.
Oh! why am I not happy, and why don’t I think this is a delightful and unusual situation, as I once would have done. I only feel depressed and miserable, and as if I wished Christopher at the bottom of the sea. I have told myself how good-looking he is—and how he attracted me at Branches—but that was before—yes, I may as well write what I was going to—before Lord Robert arrived. Well, he and Lady Ver are talking together on anice sofa by now, I suppose, in a big, well-lit drawing-room, and—oh!—I wish, IwishI had never made any bargain with her—perhaps now in that case—ah well——
Sunday afternoon.
No! I can’t bear it. All the morning I have been in a fever, first hot and then cold. What will it be like. Oh! I shall faint when he kisses me. And I know he will be dreadful like that, I have seen it in his eye—he will eat me up. Oh! I am sure I shall hate it. No man has ever kissed me in my life, and I can’t judge, but I am sure it is frightful, unless——I feel as if I shall go crazy if I stay here any longer. I can’t, I can’t stop and wait, and face it. I must have some air first. There is a misty fog. I would like to go out and get lost in it, and Iwilltoo! Not get lost, perhaps, but go out in it, and alone. I won’t have even Véronique. I shall go by myself into the Park. It is growing nearly dark, though only three o’clock. I have got an hour. It looks mysterious, and will soothe me, andsuit my mood, and then, when I come in again, I shall perhaps be able to bear it bravely, kisses and all.
Claridge’s,
Sunday evening, November 27th.
I have a great deal to write—and yet it is only a few hours since I shut up this book, and replaced the key on my bracelet.
By a quarter past three I was making my way through Grosvenor Square. Everything was misty and blurred, but not actually a thick fog, or any chance of being lost. By the time I got into the Park it had lifted a little. It seemed close and warm, and as I went on I got more depressed. I have never been out alone before; that in itself seemed strange, and ought to have amused me.
The image of Christopher kept floating in front of me, his face seemed to have the expression of a satyr. Well, at all events, he would never be able to break my heart like “Alicia Verney’s”—nothing could ever make me care for him. I tried to think of all thegood I was going to get out of the affair, and how really fond I am of Branches.
I walked very fast, people loomed at me, and then disappeared in the mist. It was getting almost dusk, and suddenly I felt tired, and sat down on a bench.
I had wandered into a side path where there were no chairs. On the bench before mine I I saw, as I passed, a tramp huddled up. I wondered what his thoughts were, and if he felt any more miserable than I did. I daresay I was crouching in a depressed position too.
Not many people went by, and every moment it grew darker. In all my life, even on the days when Mrs. Carruthers taunted me about mamma being nobody, I have never felt so wretched. Tears kept rising in my eyes, and I did not even worry to blink them away. Who would see me—and who in the world would care if they did see.
Suddenly I was conscious that a very perfect figure was coming out of the mist towards me, but not until he was close to me, andstopping with a start peered into my face, did I recognize it was Lord Robert.
“Evangeline!” he exclaimed, in a voice of consternation. “I—what, oh, what is the matter?”
No wonder he was surprised. Why he had not taken me for some tramp too, and passed on, I don’t know.
“Nothing,” I said, as well as I could, and tried to tilt my hat over my eyes. I had no veil on unfortunately.
“I have just been for a walk. Why do you call me Evangeline, and why are you not in Northumberland?”
He looked so tall and beautiful, and his face had no expression of contempt or anger now, only distress and sympathy.
“I was suddenly put on guard yesterday, and could not get leave,” he said, not answering the first part. “But, oh, I can’t bear to see you sitting here alone, and looking so, so miserable. Mayn’t I take you home? You will catch cold in the damp.”
“Oh no, not yet. I won’t go back yet!” I said, hardly realizing what I was saying. He sat down beside me, and slipped his hand into my muff, pressing my clasped fingers—the gentlest, friendliest caress, a child might have made in sympathy. It touched some foolish chord in my nature, some want of self-control inherited from mamma’s ordinary mother, I suppose, anyway the tears poured down my face—I could not help it. Oh, the shame of it! to sit crying in the Park, in front of Lord Robert, of all people in the world, too!
“Dear, dear little girl,” he said. “Tell me about it,” and he held my hand in my muff with his strong warm hand.
“I—I have nothing to tell,” I said, choking down a sob. “I am ashamed for you to see me like this, only—I am feeling so very miserable.”
“Dear child,” he said. “Well, you are not to be—I won’t have it. Has some one been unkind to you—tell me, tell me,” his voice was trembling with distress.
“It’s—it’s nothing,” I mumbled.
I dared not look at him, I knew his eyebrowswould be up in that way that attracts me so dreadfully.
“Listen,” he whispered almost, and bent over me. “I want you to be friends with me so that I can help you. I want you to go back to the time we packed your books together. God knows what has come between us since—it is not of my doing—but I want to take care of you, dear little girl to-day. It—oh, it hurts me so to see you crying here.”
“I—would like to be friends,” I said. “I never wanted to be anything else, but I could not help it—and I can’t now.”
“Won’t you tell me the reason?” he pleaded. “You have made me so dreadfully unhappy about it. I thought all sorts of things. You know I am a jealous beast.”
There can’t in the world be another voice as engaging as Lord Robert’s, and he has a trick of pronouncing words that is too attractive, and the way his mouth goes when he is speaking, showing his perfectly chiselled lips under the little moustache! There is no use pretending! I was sitting there on the bench goingthrough thrills of emotion, and longing for him to take me in his arms. It is too frightful to think of! I must be bad after all.
“Now you are going to tell me everything about it,” he commanded. “To begin with, what made you suddenly change at Tryland after the first afternoon, and then what is it that makes you so unhappy now?”
“I can’t tell you either,” I said very low. I hoped the common grandmother would not take me as far as doing mean tricks to Lady Ver!
“Oh, you have made me wild!” he exclaimed, letting go my hand, and leaning both elbows on his knees, while he pushed his hat to the back of his head. “Perfectly mad with fury and jealousy. That brute Malcolm! and then looking at Campion at dinner, and worst of all, Christopher in the box at ‘Carmen!’ Wicked, naughty little thing! And yet underneath I have a feeling it is for some absurd reason, and not for sheer devilment. If I thought that, I would soon get not to care. I did think it at ‘Carmen.’”
“Yes, I know,” I said.
“You know what?” he looked up, startled; then he took my hand again, and sat close to me.
“Oh, please, please don’t, Lord Robert!” I said.
It really made me quiver so with the loveliest feeling I have ever known, that I knew I should never be able to keep my head if he went on.
“Please, please, don’t hold my hand,” I said. “It—it makes me not able to behave nicely.”
“Darling,” he whispered, “then it shows that you like me, and I sha’n’t let go until you tell me every little bit.”
“Oh, I can’t, I can’t!” I felt too tortured, and yet waves of joy were rushing over me. Thatisa word, “darling,” for giving feelings down the back!
“Evangeline,” he said, quite sternly, “will you answer this question then—do you like me, or do you hate me? Because, as you must know very well, I love you.”
Oh, the wild joy of hearing him say that!What in the world did anything else matter! For a moment there was a singing in my ears, and I forgot everything but our two selves. Then the picture of Christopher waiting for me, with his cold, cynic’s face and eyes blazing with passion, rushed into my vision, and the Duke’s critical, suspicious, disapproving scrutiny, and I felt as if a cry of pain, like a wounded animal, escaped me.
“Darling, darling, what is it? Did I hurt your dear little hand?” Lord Robert exclaimed tenderly.
“No,” I whispered, brokenly; “but I cannot listen to you. I am going back to Claridge’s now, and I am going to marry Mr. Carruthers.”
He dropped my hand as if it stung him.
“Good God! Then it is true,” was all he said.
In fear I glanced at him—his face looked gray in the quickly gathering mist.
“Oh, Robert!” I said in anguish, unable to help myself. “It isn’t because I want to. I—I—oh! probably I love you—but I must, there is nothing else to be done.”
“Isn’t there!” he said, all the life and joycoming back to his face. “Do you think I will let Christopher, or any other man in the world, have you now you have confessed that!!” and fortunately there was no one in sight—because he put his arms round my neck, and drew me close, and kissed my lips.
Oh, what nonsense people talk of heaven! sitting on clouds and singing psalms and things like that! There can’t be any heaven half so lovely as being kissed by Robert—I felt quite giddy with happiness for several exquisite seconds, then I woke up. It was all absolutely impossible, I knew, and I must keep my head.
“Now you belong to me,” he said, letting his arm slip down to my waist; “so you must begin at the beginning, and tell me everything.”
“No, no,” I said, struggling feebly to free myself, and feeling so glad he held me tight! “It is impossible all the same, and that only makes it harder. Christopher is coming to see me at four, and I promised Lady Ver I would not be a fool, and would marry him.”
“A fig for Lady Ver,” he said, calmly, “ifthat is all; you leave her to me—she never argues with me!”
“It is not only that—I—I promised I would never play with you——”
“And you certainly never shall,” he said, and I could see a look in his eye as he purposely misconstrued my words, and then he deliberately kissed me again. Oh! I like it better than anything else in the world! How could any one keep their head with Robert quite close, making love like that?
“You certainly never—never—shall,” he said again, with a kiss between each word. “I will take care of that! Your time of playing with people is over, Mademoiselle! When you are married to me, I shall fight with any one who dares to look at you!”
“But I shall never be married to you, Robert,” I said, though, as I could only be happy for such a few moments, I did not think it necessary to move away out of his arms. How thankful I was to the fog! and no one passing! I shall always adore fogs.
“Yes, you will,” he announced, with perfectcertainty; “in about a fortnight, I should think. I can’t and won’t have you staying at Claridge’s by yourself. I shall take you back this afternoon to Aunt Sophia. Only all that we can settle presently. Now, for the moment, I want you to tell me you love me, and that you are sorry for being such a little brute all this time.”
“I did not know it until just now—but I think—I probably do love you—Robert!” I said.
He was holding my hand in my muff again, the other arm round my waist. Absolutely disgraceful behaviour in the Park; we might have been Susan Jane and Thomas Augustus, and yet I was perfectly happy, and felt it was the only natural way to sit.
A figure appeared in the distance—we started apart.
“Oh! really, really,” I gasped, “we—you—must be different.”
He leant back and laughed.
“You sweet darling! Well, come, we will go for a drive in a hansom—we will chooseone without a light inside. Albert Gate is quite close, come!” and he rose, and taking my arm, not offering his to me, like in books, he drew me on down the path.
I am sure any one would be terribly shocked to read what I have written, but not so much if they knew Robert, and how utterly adorable he is. And how masterful, and simple, and direct! He does not split straws, or bandy words. I had made the admission that I loved him, and that was enough to go upon!
As we walked alone I tried to tell him it was impossible, that I must go back to Christopher, that Lady Ver would think I had broken my word about it. I did not, of course, tell him of her bargain with me over him, but he probably guessed that, because before we got into the hansom even, he had begun to put me through a searching cross-examination as to the reasons for my behaviour at Tryland, and Park Street, and the Opera. I felt like a child with a strong man, and every moment more idiotically happy, and in love with him.
He told the cabman to drive to Hammersmith, and then put his arm round my waist again, and held my hand, pulling my glove off backwards first. It is a great big granny muff of sable I have, Mrs. Carruthers’ present on my last birthday. I never thought then to what charming use it would be put!
“Now I think we have demolished all your silly little reasons for making me miserable,” he said. “What others have you to bring forward as to why you can’t marry me in a fortnight?”
I was silent—I did not know how to say it—the principal reason of all.
“Evangeline—darling,” he pleaded. “Oh, why will you make us both unhappy—tell me at least.”
“Your brother, the Duke,” I said, very low. “He will never consent to your marrying a person like me with no relations.”
He was silent for a second,—then, “My brother is an awfully good fellow,” he said, “but his mind is warped by his infirmity. You must not think hardly of him—he willlove you directly he sees you, like everyone else.”
“I saw him yesterday,” I said.
Robert was so astonished.
“Where did you see him?” he asked.
Then I told him about meeting Lady Merrenden, and her asking me to luncheon, and about her having been in love with papa, and about the Duke having looked me through and through with an expression of dislike.
“Oh, I see it all!” said Robert, holding me closer. “Aunt Sophia and I are great friends, you know, she has always been like my mother, who died when I was a baby. I told her all about you when I came from Branches, and how I had fallen deeply in love with you at first sight, and that she must help me to see you at Tryland; and she did, and then I thought you had grown to dislike me, so when I came back she guessed I was unhappy about something, and this is her first step to find out how she can do me a good turn—oh! she is a dear!”
“Yes, indeed she is,” I said.
“Of course she is extra interested in you if she was in love with your father! So that is all right, darling, she must know all about your family, and can tell Torquilstone. Why, we have nothing to fear!”
“Oh yes we have!” I said. “I know all the story of what your brother istoquéabout. Lady Ver told me. You see the awkward part is, mamma was really nobody, her father and mother forgot to get married, and although mamma was lovely, and had been beautifully brought up by two old ladies at Brighton, it was a disgrace for papa marrying her—Mrs. Carruthers has often taunted me with this!”
“Darling!” he interrupted, and began to kiss me again, and that gave me such feelings I could not collect my thoughts to go on with what I was saying for a few minutes. We both were rather silly—if it is silly to be madly, wildly happy,—and oblivious of every thing else.
“I will go straight to Aunt Sophia now, when I take you back to Claridge’s,” he said, presently, when we had got a little calmer.
I wonder what kisses do that they make one have that perfectly lovely sensation down the back, just like certain music does, only much, much more so. I thought they would be dreadful things when it was a question of Christopher, but Robert! Oh well, as I said before, I can’t think of any other heaven.
“What time is it?” I had sense enough to ask presently.
He lit a match, and looked at his watch.
“Ten minutes past five,” he exclaimed.
“And Christopher was coming about four,” I said, “and if you had not chanced to meet me in the Park, by now I should have been engaged to him, and probably trying to bear his kissing me.”
“My God!” said Robert, fiercely, “it makes me rave to think of it,” and he held me so tight for a moment, I could hardly breathe.
“You won’t have anyone else’s kisses ever again, in this world, and that I tell you,” he said, through his teeth.
“I—I don’t want them,” I whispered,creeping closer to him; “and I never have had any, never any one but you, Robert.”
“Darling,” he said, “how that pleases me!”
Of course, if I wanted to, I could go on writing pages and pages of all the lovely things we said to one another, but it would sound, even to read to myself, such nonsense, that I can’t, and I couldn’t make the tone of Robert’s voice, or the exquisite fascination of his ways—tender, and adoring, and masterful. It must all stay in my heart; but oh! it is as if a fairy with a wand had passed, and said “bloom” to a winter tree. Numbers of emotions that I had never dreamed about were surging through me—the flood-gates of everything in my soul seemed opening in one rush of love and joy. While we were together, nothing appeared to matter—all barriers melted away.
Fate would be sure to be kind to lovers like us!
We got back to Claridge’s about six, and Robert would not let me go up to my sitting-room, until he had found out if Christopher had gone.
Yes, he had come at four, we discovered, and had waited twenty minutes, and then left, saying he would come again at half-past six.
“Then you will write him a note, and give it to the porter for him, saying you are engaged to me, and can’t see him,” Robert said.
“No, I can’t do that—I am not engaged to you, and cannot be until your family consent, and are nice to me,” I said.
“Darling,” he faltered, and his voice trembled with emotion, “darling, love is between you and me, it is our lives—however that can go, the ways of my family, nothing shall ever separate you from me, or me from you, I swear it. Write to Christopher.”
I sat down at a table in the hall and wrote,
“Dear Mr. Carruthers,—I am sorry I was out,” then I bit the end of my pen. “Don’t come and see me this evening. I will tell you why in a day or two.
“Yours sincerely,
“Evangeline Travers.”
“Will that do?” I said, and I handed it to Robert, while I addressed the envelope.
“Yes,” he said, and waited while I sealed it up, and gave it to the porter. Then, with a surreptitious squeeze of the hand, he left me to go to Lady Merrenden.
I have come up to my little sitting-room a changed being. The whole world revolves for me upon another axis, and all within the space of three short hours.
Claridge’s,
Sunday night, Nov. 27th.
Latethis evening, about eight o’clock, when I had re-locked my journal, I got a note from Robert. I was just going to begin my dinner.
I tore it open, inside was another, I did not wait to look from whom, I was too eager to read his. I paste it in.
“Carlton House Terrace.
“My darling,—I have had a long talk with Aunt Sophia, and she is everything that is sweet and kind, but she fears Torquilstone will be a little difficult (I don’t care, nothingshall separate us now). She asks me not to go and see you again to-night, as she thinks itwould be better for you that I should not go to the Hotel so late. Darling, read her note, and you will she how nice she is. I shall come round to-morrow, the moment the beastly stables are finished, about 12 o’clock. Oh! take care of yourself! What a difference to-night and last night! I was feeling horribly miserable and reckless—and to-night! Well, you can guess! I am not half good enough for you, darling, beautiful Queen—but I think I shall know how to make you happy. I love you!
“Good night my own,
“Robert.”
“Do please send me a tiny line by my servant—I have told him to wait.”
I have never had a love letter before. What lovely things they are! I felt thrills of delight over bits of it! Of course I see now that I must have been dreadfully in love with Robert all along, only I did not know it quite! I fell into a kind of blissful dream, and then I roused myself up to read Lady Merrenden’s. I sha’n’t put hers in too, it fills up too much, and I can’t shut the clasp of my journal—it is aperfectly sweet little letter, just saying Robert had told her the news, and that she was prepared to welcome me as her dearest niece, and to do all she could for us. She hoped I would not think her very tiresome and old fashioned suggesting Robert had better not see me again to-night, and if it would not inconvenience me, she would herself come round to-morrow morning, and discuss what was best to be done.
Véronique said Lord Robert’s valet was waiting outside the door, so I flew to my table, and began to write. My hand trembled so I made a blot, and had to tear that sheet up, then I wrote another. Just a little word. I was frightened, I couldn’t say loving things in a letter, I had not even spoken many to him—yet.
“I loved your note,” I began, “and I think Lady Merrenden is quite right. I will be here at twelve, and very pleased to see you.” I wanted to say I loved him, and thought twelve o’clock a long way off, but of course one could not write such things as that—so I ended with just “Love fromEvangeline.”
Then I read it over, and it did sound “missish” and silly—however, with the man waiting there in the passage, and Véronique fussing in and out of my bedroom, besides the waiters bringing up my dinner, I could not go tearing up sheets, and writing others, it looked so flurried, so it was put into an envelope. Then, in one of the seconds I was alone, I nipped off a violet from a bunch on the table, and pushed it in too. I wonder if he will think it sentimental of me! When I had written the name, I had not an idea where to address it. His was written from Carlton House Terrace, but he was evidently not there now, as his servant had brought it. I felt so nervous and excited, it was too ridiculous—I am very calm as a rule. I called the man, and asked him where was his lordship now? I did not like to say I was ignorant of where he lived.
“His lordship is at Vavasour House, Madame,” he said, respectfully, but with the faintest shade of surprise that I should not know. “His lordship dines at home this evening with his grace.”
I scribbled a note to Lady Merrenden—I would be delighted to see her in the morning at whatever time suited her. I would not go out at all, and I thanked her. It was much easier to write sweet things to her than to Robert.
When I was alone I could not eat. Véronique came in to try and persuade me. I looked so very pale, she said, she feared I had taken cold. She was in one of her “old mother” moods, when she drops the third person sometimes, and calls me “mon enfant.”
“Oh, Véronique, I have not got a cold, I am only wildly happy!” I said.
“Mademoiselle is doubtlessfiancéeto Mr. Carruthers.Oh! mon enfant adorée,” she cried, “que je suis contente!”
“Gracious no!” I exclaimed. This brought me back to Christopher with a start. What would he say when he heard?
“No, Véronique, to some one much nicer—Lord Robert Vavasour.”
Véronique was frightfully interested—Mr. Carruthers she would have preferred for meshe admitted, as being more solid—morerangé—plus à la fin de ses bêtises, but, no doubt, “Milor” was charming too, and for certain one day Mademoiselle would be Duchesse. In the meanwhile what kind of coronet would Mademoiselle have on her trousseau?
I was obliged to explain that I should not have any—or any trousseau for an indefinite time, as nothing was settled yet. This damped her a little.
“Un frère de Duc, et pas de couronne!” After seven years in England she was yet unable to understand these strange habitudes, she said.
She insisted upon putting me to bed directly after dinner—“to be prettier for Milordemain!” and then, when she had tucked me up, and was turning out the light in the centre of the room she looked back—“Mademoiselle is too beautiful like that,” she said, as if it slipped from her—“Mon Dieu! il ne s’embêterai pas, le Monsieur!”
Claridge’s,
Monday morning.
I wonderhow I lived before I met Robert. I wonder what use were the days. Oh! and I wonder, I wonder if the Duke continues to be obdurate about me if I shall ever have the strength of mind to part from him so as not to spoil his future.
Such a short time ago—not yet four weeks—since I was still at Branches, and wondering what made the clock go round—the great big clock of life.
Oh, now I know! It is being in love—frightfully in love like we are. I must try to keep my head though, and remember all the remarks of Lady Ver about things and men. Fighters all of them, and they must never feel quite sure. It will be dreadfully difficult to tease Robert, because he is so direct and simple; but I must try I suppose. Perhaps being so very pretty as I am, and having all the male creatures looking at me with interest will do, and be enough to keep himworried, and I won’t have to be tiresome myself. I hope so, because I really do love him so extremely, I would like to let myself go and be as sweet as I want to.
I am doing all the things I thought perfectly silly to hear of before. I kissed his letter, and slept with it on the pillow beside me, and this morning woke at six and turned on the electric light to read it again! The part where the “Darling” comes is quite blurry I see in daylight; that is where I kissed most I know!
I seem to be numb to everything else. Whether Lady Ver is angry or not does not bother me. I did play fair. She could not expect me to go on pretending when Robert had said straight out he loved me. But I am sure she will be angry, though, and probably rather spiteful about it.
I will write her the simple truth in a day or two, when we see how things go. She will guess by Robert not going to Sedgwick.
Claridge’s,
Monday afternoon.
Athalf past eleven this morning Lady Merrenden came, and the room was all full of flowers that Robert had sent—bunches and bunches of violets and gardenias. She kissed me, and held me tight for a moment, and we did not speak. Then she said in a voice that trembled a little,
“Robert is so very dear to me—almost my own child —that I want him to be happy, and you, too, Evangeline—I may call you that, may not I?”
I squeezed her hand.
“You are the echo of my youth, when 1, too, knew the wild springtime of love. So dear, I need not tell you that you may count upon my doing what I can for you both.”
Then we talked and talked.
“I must admit,” she said at last, “I was prejudiced in your favour for your dear father’s sake, but in any case my opinion of Robert’s judgement is so high, I would havebeen prepared to find you charming even without that. He has the rarest qualities, he is the truest, most untarnished soul in this world.”
“I don’t say,” she went on, “that he is not just as the other young men of his age and class; he is no Galahad, as no one can be with truth who is human and lives in the world. And I daresay kind friends will tell you stories of actresses and other diversions, but I who know him, tell you you have won the best and greatest darling in London.”
“Oh, I am sure of it!” I said. “I don’t know why he loves me so much, he has seen me so little; but it began from the very first minute I think with both of us. He is such a nice shape!”
She laughed. Then she asked me if she was right in supposing all thesecontretempswe had had were the doing of Lady Ver. “You need not answer, dear,” she said. “I know Ianthe—she is in love with Robert herself, she can’t help it; she means no harm, but she often gets these attacks, and they passoff. I think she is devoted to Sir Charles really.”
“Y-e-s,” I said.
“It is a queer world we live in, child,” she continued, “and true love and suitability of character are such a rare combination, but, from what I can judge, you and Robert possess them.”
“Oh, how dear of you to say so!” I exclaimed. “You don’t think Imustbe bad, then, because of my colouring?”
“What a ridiculous idea, you sweet child!” she laughed. “Who has told you that?”
“Oh! Mrs. Carruthers always said so—and—and—the old gentlemen, and—even Mr. Carruthers hinted I probably had some odd qualities. But you do think I shall be able to be fairly good, don’t you?”
She was amused I could see, but I was serious.
“I think you probably might have been a little wicked if you had married a man like Mr. Carruthers,” she said, smiling; “but with Robert I am sure you will be good. He willnever leave you a moment, and he will love you so much you won’t have time for anything else.”
“Oh! that is what I shall like—being loved,” I said.
“I think all women like that,” she sighed. “We could all of us be good if the person we love went on being demonstrative. It is the cold matter-of-fact devotion that kills love, and makes one want to look elsewhere to find it again.”
Then we talked of possibilities about the Duke. I told her I knew histoquade, and she, of course, was fully acquainted with mamma’s history.
“I must tell you, dear, I fear he will be difficult,” she said. “He is a strangely prejudiced person, and obstinate to a degree, and he worships Robert, as we all do.”
I would not ask her if the Duke had taken a dislike to me, because Iknewhe had.
“I asked you to meet him on Saturday on purpose,” she continued. “I felt sure yourcharm would impress him, as it had done me, and as it did my husband—but I wonder now if it would have been better to wait. He said, after you were gone, that you were much too beautiful for the peace of any family, and he pitied Mr. Carruthers if he married you! I don’t mean to hurt you, child. I am only telling you everything, so that we may consult how best to act.”
“Yes, I know,” I said, and I squeezed her hand again; she does not put out claws like Lady Ver.
“How did he know anything about Mr. Carruthers?” I asked, “or me—or anything?”
She looked ashamed.
“One can never tell how he hears things. He was intensely interested to meet you, and seemed to be acquainted with more of the affair than I am. I almost fear he must obtain his information from the servants.”
“Oh, does not that show the housemaid in him! Poor fellow!” I said, “He can’t helpit, then, any more than I could help crying yesterday before Robert in the Park. Of course we would neither of us have done these things if it were not for thetachein our backgrounds, only, fortunately for me, mine wasn’t a housemaid, and was one generation further back, so I would not be likely to have any of those tricks.”
She leant back in her chair and laughed. “You quaint, quaint child, Evangeline,” she said.
Just then it was twelve o’clock and Robert came in.
Oh! talk of hearts beating. If mine is going to go on jumping like this every time Robert enters a room, I shall get a disease in it in less than a year.
He looked too intensely attractive; he was not in London clothes, just serge things and a Guard’s tie, and his face was beaming, and his eyes shining like blue stars.
We behaved nicely; he only kissed my hand, and Lady Merrenden looked away at the clock even for that! She has tact!
“Isn’t my Evangeline a darling, Aunt Sophia? he said. “And don’t you love her red hair?”
“It is beautiful,” said Lady Merrenden.
“When you leave us alone I am going to pull it all down,” and he whispered, “darling, I love you,” so close, that his lips touched my ear, while he pretended he was not doing anything! I say again, Robert has ways which would charm a stone image.
“How was Torquilstone last night?” Lady Merrenden asked. “And did you tell him anything?”
“Not a word,” said Robert. “I wanted to wait and consult you both which would be best. Shall I go to him at once, or shall he be made to meet my Evangeline again and let her fascinate him, as she is bound to do, and then tell him?”
“Oh, tell him straight!” I exclaimed, remembering his proclivities about the servants, and that Véronique knows. “Then he cannot ever say we have deceived him.”
“That is how I feel,” said Robert.
“You take Evangeline to lunch, Aunt Sophia, and I will go back and feed with him and tell him, and then come to you after.”
“Yes, that will be best,” she said, and it was settled that she should come in again and fetch me in an hour, when Robert should leave to go to Vavasour House. He went with her to the lift, and then he came back.
No—even in this locked book I am not going to write of that hour—it was too divine. If I had thought just sitting in the Park was heaven, I now know there are degrees of heaven, and that Robert is teaching me up towards the seventh.
Monday afternoon (continued).
I forgotto say a note came from Christopher by this morning’s post—it made me laugh when I read it, then it went out of my head, but when Lady Merrenden returned for me, and we were more or less sane again—Robert and I—I thought of it; so apparently did he.