And then, playing nervously with a button of his coat, Ruth confessed all. As she spoke she gathered confidence, but not enough to watch his face. That was turned to the gray morning, and looked as gray as it. The fine weather had indeed broken up, and Essingham had lost its savor for Erskine Holland.
And yet, even at the time she made it, Ruth little dreamt how deeply her confession both galled and revolted her husband. He forgave her very kindly in the end, and that satisfied her lean imagination. Perhaps there was not much to forgive. There was enough, at all events, to trouble Erskine (to whom the best excuse there was for her was the least likely to suggest itself); but the matter soon ceased to trouble Erskine's wife, because his smile was as good-tempered as before. He seemed, indeed, to think no more about it. When Ruth would speak confidentially of her hopes and wishes for Tiny (as though Erskine had been in her confidence all the time), he would chat the matter over with interest, which was the next best thing to sympathy. He had to do this oftener than he liked during the next twenty-four hours; for Ruth really thought that excessive candor now was a more or lessadequate atonement for an excessive reserve in the past. Moreover, she genuinely enjoyed talking openly at last of the matter which had concerned her so long and so severely in secret.
"Don't you think he means it?" she asked her husband several times.
"I am afraid he thinks he does," was one of Holland's answers.
"That's your way of admitting it," rejoined Ruth, who could bear his repudiation of her desires for the sake of his assent to her opinion, which Erskine was too honest to withhold. "Of course he means it. Have you noticed how he watches her?"
"I have noticed it once or twice."
"And did you see him watching his mother, the night we dined there, to see what impression Tiny made upon her?"
"So you spotted that!" Erskine said curiously, not having given his wife the credit for such acute perception. "Well, I own that I did, too; and that was worse than his watching Tiny. This is a youth with a well-known weakness for his mamma. She has probably more influence over him than any other body in the world. I am prepared to bet that itwas she, and she alone, who whistled him back from Australia. Now though she did it partly by her singing—which, by the way, was rather cheap for our Tiny—there's no doubt at all about the impression Tiny has made upon Lady Dromard; and that's the worst of it."
"The worst of it! as if he was beneath her!" said Ruth mockingly. "Or is it that you think her too terribly beneath him?"
"Tiny," said Erskine, shaking his head, "is beneath no man that I have yet come across."
"Then what can you have against it? Is it that you think she will grow so grand that we shall see no more of her! If so, it shows how much you know of our Tiny. Or do you think him too high and mighty to be honest and true? I don't profess to know much about it," continued Ruth scornfully, being stung to eloquence by his perversity, "but I should have said an honest man and his love might be found in a castle, sometimes, as well as in a cottage!"
"'Hearts just as pure and fair may beat in Belgrave Square as in the lowly air of Seven Dials,'" quoted Erskine, with a laugh. "Igrant all that; but if you want to know, my point is that Tiny would be thrown away on Belgrave Square! She is far too funny and fresh, and unlike most of us, to thrive in that fine soil; she would need to be clipped and pruned and trimmed in the image of other people. And that would spoil her. Whatever else she may be, she's more or less original as she stands. She's not a copy now; but she will have to become one in Belgrave Square."
"Shewillhave to become one!" cried Ruth, jumping at the change of mood. "Then you think that Tiny means it, too?"
"I am afraid she means to marry him," said Erskine, with a sigh. "I have visions of our Tiny ours no more, but my Lady Manister, and Countess Dromard in due course."
So delighted was Ruth with his opinion on this point that his other opinions had no power to annoy her; and in her joy she told him once more, and with much impulsive feeling, how sorry she was for having kept him in the dark so willfully and so long. She called him an angel of good temper and forbearance, and undertook to reward his generosity by never hiding another thing from him in herlife. And she would never, never vex him again, she said—so earnestly that he thought she meant it, as indeed she thought herself, for half a minute.
"But you mean to go to the match to-morrow?" he asked her wistfully.
"Oh, we must—if it's fine. It's the last match of the week; besides, Herbert's going to play."
This was an argument, and Erskine said no more. The chances are that he would have said no more in any case. The following afternoon Ruth drove with Tiny to the match, and with a particularly light heart, because she had not heard another word against the plan. Her one remaining anxiety was lest it might rain before they got to the cricket field.
For the day was one of those dull ones of early autumn when there is little wind, a gray sky, and more than a chance of rain; but none had fallen during the morning, which reduced the chance; while the clouds were high, and occasionally parted by faint rays of sunshine. The ground was so beautiful in itself that it was the greater pity there was no more sun, since, without it, well-kept turf and tall trees are like a sweet face saddened. Thetrees were the fine elms of that country, and they flanked two sides of the ground; but one missed their shadows, and the foliage had a dingy, lack-luster look in the tame light. On the third side a ha-ha formed a natural "boundary," and the red, spreading house stood aloof on the fourth, giving a touch of welcome warmth to a picture whose highest lights were the white flannels of the players and the canvas tents. The tents were many, and admirably arranged; but one beneath the elms had a side on the ground to itself; and thither drove Mrs. Holland, alighting rather nervously as a groom came promptly to the pony's head, because this was the ladies' tent.
To-day, however, the tent was not formidably full, as it had been when the girls had watched the cricket from it earlier in the week; this was only the Saturday's match. Ruth looked in vain for Lady Dromard, but received a cold greeting from her daughter, Lady Mary, upon whom the guinea stamp was disagreeably fresh and sharp. The sight of Mrs. Willoughby and her friend Mrs. Foster-Simpson on a front seat was a relief at the moment (the sight of anything to nod to is a relief sometimes); but Ruth was discreet enough to sit down behind these ladies, not beside them. She congratulated herself on her presence of mind when she heard the tone and character of some of their comments on the game. It would have done Ruth no good to be seen at the side of loud Mrs. Foster-Simpson or of loquacious Mrs. Willoughby, and it might have done Tiny grave harm. Mrs. Willoughby's husband, who had good-naturedly become eleventh man at the eleventh hour, was conspicuous in the field from his black trousers, clerical wide-awake, and shirt-sleeves of gray flannel. "I hope you admire him," said his wife over her shoulder to Ruth; "I tell him he might as well take a funeral in flannels!"
"Or dine in his surplice," added her friend Mrs. Foster-Simpson in a voice that carried to the back of the tent.
"I just do admire Mr. Willoughby," Ruth said softly; "he has a soul above appearances."
"You're not his wife," replied the lady who was.
"You may thank your stars!" shouted her too familiar friend.
Little Mrs. Holland turned to her sister andspeculated aloud as to the state of the game, but her tone was an example to the ladies in front, who nevertheless did not lower theirs to supply the gratuitous information that the Mundham players had been fielding all day.
"They're getting the worst of it," declared Mrs. Willoughby, perhaps prematurely.
"Do them good," her friend said viciously, but with the soft pedal down for once. "There would have been no holding them. That young Dromard, now—it will take it out ofhim. He wants it taking out of him!"
Mr. Stanley Dromard, who had been scoring heavily all the week, happened to be in the deep field close to the tent. Ruth nudged her sister, and they moved further along their row in order to avoid the bonnets in front.
"Horrid people!" whispered Ruth.
"That's the earl by the canvas screen," answered Tiny. "I should like to send him a new straw hat!"
"Hush!" whispered Ruth in terror. "You're as bad as they are. Tell me, do you see Herbert?"
"Yes, there he is, all by himself. There's a man out."
"Is there? How tired they seem! That'sLord Manister sprawling on the grass. What a boy he looks! You wouldn't think he was anybody in particular, would you?"
"I should hope not, indeed, on the cricket field!"
"I only meant he looked rather nice."
"Certainly he looks nicer in flannels than in anything else; his tailor has less to do with it."
The patience of Ruth was inexhaustible. She watched the game until another wicket fell. Then it was her admiration for the scene that escaped in more whispers.
"Isn'tit a lovely place, Tiny?"
"Oh, it's all that."
"I've never seen one to touch it, and I have seen two or three, you know, since we were married. But the house is the best part of it all. I would give anything to live in a house like that—wouldn't you?"
"I? My immortal soul!"
And Tiny sighed, but Ruth, looking round quickly, saw laughter in her eyes, and said no more. Tiny was very trying. Was she half in earnest, or wholly in jest? Ruth could never tell; and now, while she wondered, a lady who knew her sat down on her right. Ruth was glad enough to shake hands andtalk, and not sorry in this case to be seen doing so, while at the moment it was a very human pleasure to her to leave Tiny to take care of herself. And that was a thing at which Tiny may be said to have excelled, so far as one saw, and no further. The attacks of most tongues she was capable of repelling with distinction; against those of her own thoughts she made ever the feeblest resistance; and at this stage of Christina's career her own thoughts were a swarm of flies upon a wound in her heart. That was the truth—and no one suspected it.
During the next quarter of an hour the innings came to an end, and the fielders trooped over to the group of tents at another side of the ground. Tiny hoped that one of them would have the good taste to come to the ladies' tent and talk to her; an Eton boy would do very well; Herbert would be better than nobody: but she hoped in vain. On her right Ruth had turned her back, and was quite taken up with the lady with whom she was not sorry to be seen in conversation. The chairs on her left were all empty; and those flies were fighting for her heart. It was the rustle of silk disturbed them in the end; and LadyDromard who sat down in the empty chair on Tiny's left.
"I am so glad to see you both," said the countess as though she meant it; and she leant over to shake hands with Ruth, whose back was now turned upon her new found friend. Not so much was said to the pair in front, though those ladies had something to say for themselves. Lady Dromard gave them very small change in smiles, but made the conversation general for a minute or two, with that graceful tact at which, perhaps, she was, in a manner, a professional. With equal facility she dropped them from her talk one after another, much as the last wickets had fallen in the match, and until only Tiny was left in. For the countess had come there expressly to talk to Miss Luttrell, as she herself stated with charming directness.
"I was afraid you were feeling dull; though really you deserve to, Miss Luttrell."
"I was," said Tiny honestly; "but I don't know what I have done to deserve to, Lady Dromard."
"It's the last match, and a poor one, which nobody cares anything about. You should have come earlier in the week."
"We were here on Wednesday afternoon."
"But why not oftener? My second son made ninety-three on Thursday. I do wish you had seen that!"
"It wasn't my fault that I didn't," remarked Miss Luttrell. "I suppose things came in the way."
"Then you are a cricketer!" exclaimed the countess. "I am glad to hear it, for I am a great cricketer myself. No, I don't play, Miss Luttrell; only I know all about it."
Christina candidly confessed that she was not a cricketer in any sense—that, in fact, she knew very little about cricket; and the countess, who considered how many girls would have pretended to know much, was more pleased with this answer than she would have been with an exhibition of real knowledge of the game.
"My only interest in this match, however," explained Lady Dromard, "is in my eldest son. I do so want him to make runs! He has been dreadfully unsuccessful all the week."
Christina was discreetly sympathetic.
"He is going in first," murmured the countess presently in suppressed excitement. "We must watch the match."
So they sat without speaking during the first few overs, and the silence did much for Christina, by putting her at her ease in the hour when she needed all the ease at her command. Cool as she was outwardly, in her heart she was not a little afraid of Lady Dromard, whose manner toward herself had already struck her as rather too kind and much too scrutinizing. She now entertained a perfectly private conviction that Lady Dromard either knew something about her or had her suspicions. Not that this made Christina particularly uncomfortable at the moment. The countess had eyes and wits for the game only, following it intently through a heavy field glass grown light now that Manister was batting.
It was difficult to realize that this eager, animated woman was the mother of the young fellow at the wicket, she looked so very little older than her son; or so it seemed to Tiny, who now had ample opportunity to study not only her face and figure, but her quiet, handsome bonnet and faultless dress. Even Tiny could not help admiring Lady Dromard. Suddenly, however, the hand that held the field-glass was allowed to drop, andthe fine face flushed with disappointment as a round of applause burst from the field and found no echo in the tents.
"Manister is out!" exclaimed the countess. "He has only made two or three!"
"How fond she is of him," thought the girl, still watching her companion's face, which somehow softened Christina toward both mother and son; so that now it was with real sympathy that she remarked, "Poor Lord Manister! I am very sorry."
Some expressions of condolence from the seats in front threw the young girl's words into advantageous relief.
The countess said presently to Christina, "I am sorry it has turned out so dull a day; the ground looks really nice when it is fine and sunny."
"It is a beautiful ground," answered Tiny simply; "the trees are so splendid."
"Ah, but you're used to splendid trees."
"In Australia? Well, we are and we are not, Lady Dromard. I mean to say, there are tremendous trees in some parts; in others there are none at all, you know. Up the bush, where we used to live, the trees were of very little account."
"I thought the bush was nothingbuttrees," remarked Lady Dromard; and Christina could not help smiling as she explained the comprehensive character of "the bush."
"So you were actually brought up on a sheep farm!" said Lady Dromard, looking flatteringly at the graceful young girl.
"Yes—on a station. It was in the bush, and very much the bush," laughed Tiny, "for we were hundreds of miles up country. But most of the trees were no higher than this tent, Lady Dromard. The homestead was in a clump of pines, and they were pretty tall, but the rest were mere scrub."
"Then how in the world," cried her ladyship, "did you manage to become educated? What school could you go to in a place like that?"
"We never went to school at all," Tiny informed her confidentially. "We had a governess."
"Ah, and she taught you to sing! I should like to meet that governess. She must be a very clever person."
Her ladyship's manner was delightfully blunt.
"Now, Lady Dromard, you're laughing at me! I know nothing—I have read nothing."
"I rejoice to hear it!" cried the countess cordially. "I assure you, Miss Luttrell, that's a most refreshing confession in these days. Only it's too good to be true. I don't believe you, you know."
Christina made no great effort to establish the truth of her statement; for some minutes longer they watched the game.
But the countess was not interested, though her younger son had gone in, and had already begun to score. "What were they?" she said at length with extreme obscurity; but Christina was polite enough not to ask her what she meant until she had put this question to herself, and while she still hesitated Lady Dromard recollected herself, appreciated the hesitation, and explained. "I mean the trees in the bush, at your farm. Were they gum trees?"
"Very few of them—there are hardly any gum trees up there."
"Do you know thatIhave a young gum tree?" said Lady Dromard amusingly, as though it were a young opossum.
"No!" said Tiny incredulously.
"But I have, in the conservatory; you might have seen it the other evening."
"How I wish I had!"
The young girl's face wore a flush of genuine animation. Lady Dromard regarded it for a moment, and admired it very much; then she bent forward and touched Ruth on the arm.
"Mrs. Holland, will you trust your sister to me for half an hour? I want to show her something that will interest her more than the cricket."
"Oh, Lady Dromard, I can't think of taking you away from the match," cried Christina, while Ruth's eyes danced, and the bonnets in front turned round.
"My dear Miss Luttrell, it will interestmemore, now that Lord Manister is out."
"But there's Mr. Dromard."
"Oh, that boy! He has made more runs this week than are good for him. Miss Luttrell, am I to go alone?"
The bonnets in front knocked together.
If Tiny Luttrell suffered at all from self-consciousness as she followed Lady Dromard from the tent, she hid it uncommonly well. Her color did not change, while her expression was neither bashful nor bold, and unnatural only in its entire naturalness. Considering that the conversation in the ladies' tent underwent a momentary lull, by no means so slight as to escape a sensitive ear, the girl's serene bearing at the countess' skirts was in its way an achievement of which no one thought more highly than Lady Dromard herself. Christina had not merely imagined that she was being systematically watched. No sooner were they in the open air than the countess wheeled abruptly, expecting to surprise some slight embarrassment, not unpardonable in so young a face; and this was not the only occasion on which she was agreeably disappointed in little Miss Luttrell. The short cut to the housewas a narrow path that crossed an intervening paddock. They followed this path. But now Lady Dromard walked behind, with eyes slightly narrowed; and still she approved.
Presently they reached the conservatory. It was large and lofty, and the smooth white flags and spreading fronds gave it an appearance of coolness and quiet very different from Christina's recollection of the place on the night of the dance, when Chinese lanterns had shone and smoked and smelt among the foliage, and a frivolous hum had filled the air. The gum tree proved to be a sapling of no great promise or pretensions. Nor was it seen to advantage, being planted in the central bed, in the midst of some admirable palms and tree-ferns. But Tiny made a long arm to seize the leaves and pull them to her nostrils, setting foot on the soft soil in her excitement; and when she started back, with an apology for the mark, her face was beaming.
"But that was a real whiff of Australia," she added gratefully—"the first I've had since I sailed. It was very, very good of you to bring me, Lady Dromard. If you knew how it reminds me!"
"I thought it would interest you," remarkedLady Dromard, who was herself more interested in the footprint on the soil, which was absurdly small. "If you like I will show you something that should remind you still more."
"Oh, of course I like to see anything Australian; but I am sure I am troubling you a great deal, Lady Dromard!"
"Not in the least, my dear Miss Luttrell. I have something extremely Australian to show you now."
Countess Dromard led the way through the room in which Tiny had danced. It was still carpetless and empty, and the clatter of her walking shoes on the floor which her ball slippers had skimmed so noiselessly struck a note that jarred. The desire came over Tiny to turn back. As they passed through the hall, a side door stood open; the girl saw it with a gasp for the open air. It was an odd sensation, as of the march into prison. It made her lag while it lasted; when it passed it was as though weights had been removed from her feet. She ran lightly up the shallow stairs; Lady Dromard was waiting on the landing, and led her along a corridor.
Here Tiny forgot that her feet had drummed vague misgivings into her mind; she could nolonger hear her own steps the corridor was so thickly carpeted. It was a special corridor, leading to a very special room of delicate tints and dainty furniture, and Christina was so far herself again as to enter without a qualm. But her qualms had been a rather singular thing.
"This is my own little chapel of ease, Miss Luttrell," the countess explained; "and now do you not see a fellow-countryman?"
She pointed to the window; and in front of the window was a pedestal supporting a gilded cage, and in the cage a pink-and-gray parrot, of a kind with which the girl had been familiar from her infancy. "Oh, you beauty!" cried Christina, going to the cage and scratching the bird's head through the wires. "It's a galar," she added.
"Indeed," said Lady Dromard, watching her; "a galar! I must remember that. By the way, can you tell me why he doesn't talk?"
Christina answered, in a slightly preoccupied manner, that galars very seldom did. She had become quite absorbed in the bird; she seemed easily pleased. She went the length of asking whether she might take him out, and received a hesitating permission to do soat her own risk, Lady Dromard confessing that for her own part she was quite afraid to touch him through the wires. In a twinkling the girl had the bird in her hand, and was smoothing its feathers with her chin. The sun was beginning to struggle through the clouds; the window faced the west; and the faint rays, falling on the young girl's face and the bird's bright plumage, threw a good light on a charming picture. Lady Dromard was reminded of the artificial art of her young days, when this was a favorite posture, and searched narrowly for artifice in her guest. Finding none she admired more keenly than before, but became also more timid on the other's account, so that she could fancy the blood sliding down the fair skin which the beak actually touched.
"Dear Miss Luttrell, do put him back! I tremble for you."
Tiny put the quiet thing back on the perch. Then she turned to Lady Dromard with rather a comic expression.
"Do you know what we used to do with this gentleman up on the station?" said Tiny shamefacedly. "We poisoned him wholesale to save our crop. But this one seems like anold friend to me. Lady Dromard, you have taken me back to the bush this afternoon!"
"So it appears," observed the countess dryly, "or I think you would admire my little view. That's Gallow Hill, and I'm rather proud of my view of it, because it is the only hill of any sort in these parts. Then the sun sets behind it, and those three trees stand out so."
"Ah! I have often wanted to climb up to those three trees," said Tiny, who took a tantalized interest in Gallow Hill; "but I mayn't, because I'm in England, where trespassers will be prosecuted."
For a moment Lady Dromard stared. Then she saw that Christina had merely forgotten. "Dear me, that stupid notice board!" exclaimed the countess. "Lord Dromard never meant it to apply to everybody. Next time you come here come over Gallow Hill, and through the little green gate you can just see. You will find it a quarter of the distance."
Christina had indeed spoken without thinking of Gallow Hill as a part of the estate, or of the warning to trespassers as Lord Dromard's doing. Now she apologized, and was naturally a little confused; but this time the countess would not have had her otherwise. "You shall go back that way this very evening," she said kindly, "and I promise you shan't be prosecuted." But Christina had to pet her fellow-countryman for a minute or two before she quite regained her ease, while her ladyship touched the bell and ordered tea.
"How fond you must be of the bush!" Lady Dromard exclaimed as the girl still lingered by the cage.
"I like it very much," said Christina soberly.
"Better than Melbourne?"
"Oh, infinitely."
"And England?"
"Yes, better than England—I can't help it," Tiny added apologetically.
"There's no reason why you should," said Lady Dromard, with a smile. "I could imagine your quite disliking England after Australia. I'm sure my son disliked it when he first came back."
"Did he?" the girl said indifferently. "Ah, well! I don't dislike England. I admire it very much, and, of course, it is ever so much better than Australia in every way. We have no villages like Essingham out there, no red tiles andold churches, and certainly no villagers who treat you like a queen on wheels when you walk down the street. We've nothing of that sort—nor of this sort either—no splendid old houses and beautiful old grounds! But I can't help it, I'd rather live out there. Give me the bush!"
"Youareenthusiastic about the bush," said Lady Dromard, laughing; "yet you don't know how fresh enthusiasm is to one nowadays."
"I'm afraid I'm not enthusiastic about anything else, then," answered Christina with engaging candor. "They tell me I don't half appreciate England; I disappoint all my friends here."
"Ah, that is perhaps your little joke at our expense!"
Christina was on the brink of an audacious reply when a footman entered with the tea tray. That took some of the audacity out of her. She had not heard the order given. Once more she reflected where she was, and with whom, and once more she wished herself elsewhere. It was a mild return of her panic downstairs. Now she felt vaguely apprehensive and as vaguely exultant. In the uncertain fusion of her feelings she was apt to become a little unguarded in what she said; there was safety in her sense of this tendency, however.
Lady Dromard was reflecting also. As the footman withdrew she had told him not to shut the door. The truth was she had got Christina to herself by pure design, though she had not originally intended to get her to herself up here. That had been an inspiration of the moment, and even now Lady Dromard was by no means sure of its wisdom. She had gone so far as to closet herself with this girl, but she did not wish the proceeding to appear so pronounced either to the footman or to the girl herself. It would make the footman talk, while it might frighten the girl. That, at any rate, was the idea of Countess Dromard, who, however, had not yet learnt her way about the young mind with which she was dealing.
The tea tray had been placed on a small table near the window. Lady Dromard promptly settled herself with her back to the light, and motioned Christina to a chair facing her.
"Now you'll be able to watch your beloved bird," said her ladyship craftily. "I thoughtwe might as well have tea now we are here. I thought it would be so much more comfortable than having it in the tent."
Tiny settled a business matter by stating that she took two pieces of sugar, but only one spot of cream. Unconsciously, however, she had followed Lady Dromard's advice, for her eyes were fixed on the parrot in the cage.
"I have only had him a few months," observed the countess suggestively. "Something less than a year, I should say."
"Yes?" And Tiny lowered her eyes politely to her hostess' face.
"Yes," repeated Lady Dromard affirmatively. "My son brought him home for me. It was the only present he had time to get, so I rather value it."
The girl's gaze returned involuntarily to the bird she had caressed; apparently her interest was neither diminished nor increased by this information as to its origin.
"He was in a great hurry to run away from us, was he not?" she remarked inoffensively; but there was no attempt in her manner to conceal the fact that Christina knew what she was talking about.
"He was obliged to return rather suddenly," said the countess after a moment's hesitation. She made a longer pause before slyly adding, "I consider myself very lucky to have got him back at all."
"How is that, Lady Dromard?"
And Christina outstared the countess, so that she was asked whether she would not take another cup of tea. She would, and her hand neither rattled it empty nor spilt it full. Then Lady Dromard smiled at the coronet on her teaspoon, and said to it:
"The fact is I was terrified lest he should go and marry one of you."
"One ofus?"
"Some fascinating Australian beauty," said Lady Dromard hastily. "So many aids-de-camp have done that."
"Poor—young—men!" said Tiny, as slowly and solemnly as though her words were going to the young men's funeral. "It would have been a calamity indeed."
So far from showing indignation Lady Dromard leant forward in her chair to say in her most winning manner:
"I should have been all the more terrified had I knownyou, Miss Luttrell!"
Clearly this was meant for one of those blunt effective compliments to which Lady Dromard had the peculiar knack of imparting delicacy and grace. But the words were no sooner uttered than she saw their double meaning, and grimly awaited the obvious misconstruction. Tiny, however, had a quick perception, and plenty of common sense in little things. Instead of a snub the countess received a good-tempered smile, for which she could not help feeling grateful at the time; but now her instinct told her that she was dealing with a person with whom it might be well to be a little more downright, and she obeyed her instinct without further delay.
"Miss Luttrell, I am sure there is no occasion for me to beat about the bush—with you," she began in an altered, but a no less flattering tone; "I see that one is quite safe in being frank with you. The fact is—and you know it—my son very nearly did marry someone out there. Now you met him out there in society, and you probably knew everyone there who was worth knowing, so pray don't pretend that you know nothing about this."
Their eyes were joined, but at the moment Christina's was the cooler glance.
"I couldn't pretend that, Lady Dromard, for it happens that I knowallabout it."
The countess was perceptibly startled. "The girl was a friend of yours?" she inquired quickly.
"A great friend," answered Tiny, nodding.
"How I wish you would tell me her name!"
"I mustn't do that." This was said decidedly. "But it seems a strange thing that you don't know it."
"It is a strange thing," Lady Dromard allowed; "nevertheless it's the truth. I never heard her name. You may imagine my curiosity. Miss Luttrell, I seem to have felt ever since I met you that you knew something about this—that you could tell one something. And I don't mind confessing to you now—since I see you are not the one to misunderstand me willfully—that I have purposely sought an opportunity of sounding you on the subject."
Christina smiled, for this was not news to her.
"My son will tell me nothing," continued Lady Dromard, "and I have, of course, the greatest curiosity to know everything. It is no idle curiosity, Miss Luttrell. I am hismother, and he has never got over that attachment."
"Has he not?" said Tiny with dry satire.
"He has never got over it," repeated Lady Dromard in a tone which was a match for the other. "Has the girl?"
Tiny was startled in her turn. She hesitated before replying, and seemed to waver over the nature of her reply. It was the first sign she had shown of wavering at all, and Lady Dromard drew her breath. The girl was hanging her head, and murmuring that she really could not answer for the other girl. Suddenly she flung up her face, and it was hot, but not hotter than her words:
"Yes, Lady Dromard, you are his mother. But the girl was my friend. He treated her abominably!"
"It wasn't his fault—it was mine," said Lady Dromard steadily.
"I'm afraid that does not make one think any better of him," murmured the young girl. Her chin was resting in her hand. The flush had passed from her face as suddenly as it had come. Her eyes were raised to the sky out of the window, and there was in them the sad, hardened, reckless look that those whoknew her best had seen too often, latterly, in her silent moments. The sun was dropping clear of the clouds, and the brighter rays fell kindly over Tiny's dark hair and pale, piquant face. The keen eye that was on her had never watched more closely nor admired so much.
"Consider!" said Lady Dromard presently, and rather gently. "Try to put yourself in our place—and consider. We have a position, here in England, of which very few people can be got to take a sensible view; half the country professes an absurd contempt for it, while the other half speaks of it and of us with bated breath. We ourselves naturally think something of our position, and we try, as we say, to keep it up. Of course we are worldly, in the popular sense. We bring up our children with worldly ideas. They must make worldly marriages in their own station. Is it so very contemptible that we should see to this, and dread beyond most things an unwise or an unequal marriage? Now do consider: we let our son go out to Australia, because it is good for a young man to see the world before he marries and settles down—and mind! that was what he was about to do.If he had not gone to Australia then, he would have been married at once. He was all but engaged. It was a case of putting off the engagement instead of the marriage. We do not believe in long, formal engagements; we do not permit them. We find them undesirable for many reasons. So, you see, he goes out to Australia as good as engaged, but unable to say so, and very young, and no doubt very susceptible. Can you wonder that I tremble for him when he has gone? Well, he is the best son in the world, and has told me everything always. That is my comfort. But presently he tells one things in his letters which make one tremble more than ever, though he tells them jokingly. Then a cousin of Lord Dromard's stays a day or two in Melbourne and comes home with a report——"
Christina's face twitched in the sunlight. "I suppose that was Captain Dromard?" she said quietly; "I never met him, but I saw him." She seemed to see him then, and that was why her face twitched. She was still staring out of the window at the yellowing sky.
"Captain Dromard had forgotten the girl'sname," said the countess pointedly; "but he told me enough to make me write to my boy—I nearly cabled! And do you think I was wrong?"
"Not from your point of view, Lady Dromard," answered Christina judicially, with her eyes half closed in the slanting sunbeams which she chose to face. "Certainly you cannot have had very much faith in Lord Manister's judgment; but the case is altered if he was to all intents and purposes engaged to a girl in England; and, at all events, that's the worst that could be said of you—looking at it from your own point of view. But is not the girl out there entitled to a point of view as well?" And the hardened reckless eyes were turned so suddenly upon Lady Dromard that the youth and grace and bitterness of the girl smote her straight to the heart.
There was a slight tremor and great tenderness in the voice that whispered, "Did she feel it very much? Come, come—don't tell me it broke her heart!"
"No, I won't tell you that," said the girl briskly, but with a laugh which hurt. "That doesn't break so easily in these days. No, it didn't break her heart, Lady Dromard—it didmuch worse. It got her talked about. It poisoned her mind, it killed her faith, it spoilt her temper. It did all that—and one thing worse still. Though it didn'tbreakher heart, Lady Dromard, it cracked it, so that it will never ring true any more; it made her hate those she had loved—those who loved her; it made it impossible for her ever to care for anybody in the whole wide world again!"
Lady Dromard had drawn her chair nearer to the girl, and nearer still. Lady Dromard was no longer mistress of herself.
"Did it make her hateyou, my dear?"
"It made her loathe—me."
Lady Dromard was seen to battle with a strong womanly impulse, and to lose. Her fine eyes filled with tears. Her soft, white hands flew out to Christina's, and drew them to her bosom. At this moment a young man in flannels appeared at the door, and the young man was Lord Manister; but the rich carpet had muffled his tread, and the two women had eyes for one another only—the girl he had loved—the mother who had drawn him from her. The same sunbeam washed them both.
"Now I know her name—now I know it!"
"I think you cannot have found it out this minute, Lady Dromard."
"But I have. I have never known whether to believe it or not, since it first crossed my mind, the night you dined here. You see, I know him so well! But he didn't tell me, and after all I had no reason to suppose it. Oh, he has told me nothing—and you are the gulf between us, for which I have only myself to thank. Ah, if I had only dreamt—of you!"
Tiny suffered herself to be kissed upon the cheek.
"Pray say no more, dear Lady Dromard," she said quietly. "Shall I tell you why?" she added, drawing back. "Why, because it's quite a thing of the past."
"It is not a thing of the past," cried Lady Dromard passionately. "He has never loved anyone else. He bitterly regrets having listened to me, and I, now that I know you—I bitterly regret everything! And he loves you ... and I would rather ... and I have told him what is the simple truth—how I have admired you from the first!"
The last sentence was doubtless a mistake. It was the only one that would let itself be uttered, however, and before another couldbe added by either woman Lord Manister had tramped into the room. They fell the further apart as he came between them and stooped down, laying his hands heavily on the little table. His eyes sped from the girl to his mother, and back to the girl, on whom they stayed. One hand held his crumpled cap. His hair was disordered. In many ways he looked at his best, as Tiny had always said he did in flannels. But never before had Tiny seen him half so earnest and sad and handsome.
"My mother is right," he said firmly. "I love you, and I ask you to forgive us both, and to give me what I don't deserve—one word of hope!"
The young girl glanced from his grave, humble face to that of his mother, through whose tears a smile was breaking. Lady Dromard's lips were parted, half in surprise at the humility of her son's words, half in eagerness for the answer to them. Tiny Luttrell read her like a printed book, and rose to her feet with a smile that was equally unmistakable, for it was a smile of triumph.
Now Herbert was taking part in the match, and Ruth was in the ladies' tent, trying not to think of Christina, who was playing a single-wicket game in another place. But Erskine Holland was rolling the rectory court gloomily and quite alone, and he was tired of Essingham. Not only had the day kept fine in spite of its threats, but toward the end of the afternoon it turned out very fine indeed, and the light became excellent for lawn tennis, because there was nobody to play with poor Erskine. Even the good Willoughby was on the accursed field over yonder; and he mattered least. Ruth was there. Tiny was there. Herbert was not only there, but playing for Lord Manister, who was notoriously short of men. One can hardly wonder at Erskine's condemnation of his brother-in-law, out of his own mouth, as a stultified young fraud in the matter of Lord Manister. As to the girls,some old tenets of his concerning women in general returned to taunt him for the ship-wreck of his holiday at least. Yet Ruth had but plotted for her sister's advancement, not her own. Whether Christina cared in the least for the man whom she evidently meant to marry, if she could, was, after all, Christina's own affair. Erskine had only heard her disparage him behind his back—at which Herbert himself could not beat her—whereas Ruth had at least been openly in favor of the fellow from the very first. But if Herbert was a fraud, what was the name for Tiny? Clearly the only trustworthy person of the three was Ruth, who at least—yet alone—was consistent.
To this conclusion, which was not without its pleasing side, Erskine came with his eyes on the ground he was rolling. But as he pushed the roller toward the low stone wall dividing the lawn from the churchyard, into which the balls were too often hit, one came whizzing out of it for a change, and struck the roller under Erskine's nose. And leaning with her elbows on the low wall, and her right hand under her chin, as though it were the last right hand that could have flung that ball, stood thegirl for whom a bad enough name had yet to be found.
"Where on earth did you spring from?" Holland asked, a little brusquely, as he stopped for a moment and then rolled on toward the wall.
"If you mean the ball," replied Tiny, "it must be the one we lost the last time we played. I have just found it among the graves, and it slipped out of my hand."
"I meant you," said Erskine, with an unsuccessful smile; and he pushed the roller close up to the wall, and folded his arms upon the handle.
"Oh, I have come from the hall by the forbidden path over Gallow Hill; but it seems that wasn't meant for us, and at any rate I have leave to use it whenever I like." She was puzzling him, and she knew it, but she met his eyes with a mysterious smile for some moments before adding: "You can't think what a view there is from the top of the hill—I mean a view of the hall. Just now the sun was blazing in all the windows, like the flash of a broadside from an old two-decker; you see it made such an impression on me that I thought of that for your benefit."
Erskine acknowledged the benefit rather heavily with a nod.
"What have you done with Ruth?"
"To the best of my belief she is watching the match; at least she was an hour ago."
"Somethinghashappened!" exclaimed Erskine Holland, starting upright and leaving the roller handle swinging in the air like an inverted pendulum. His eyes were unconsciously stern; those of the girl seemed to quail before them.
"Something has happened," she admitted to the top of the wall. "I suppose you would get to know sooner or later, so I may as well tell you myself now. The fact is Lord Manister has just proposed to me."
Erskine dropped his eyes and shrugged slightly; then he raised them to the setting sun, and tried to look resigned; then, with a noticeable effort, he brought them back to her face, and forced a smile.
"I'm not surprised. I saw it coming, though I hardly expected it so soon. Well, Tiny, I congratulate you! He is about the most brilliant match in England."
"Quite the most, I thought?"
"And I am sure he is a first-rate fellow,"added Erskine with vigor, regretting that he had not said this first, and disliking what he had said.
"Oh, he is a very good sort," acknowledged Tiny to the wall.
"So you ought to be the happiest young woman in the world, as you are perhaps the luckiest—I mean in one sense. And I congratulate you, Tiny, I do indeed!"
To clinch his congratulations he held out his hand, from which she raised her eyes to him at last—with the look of a cabman refusing his proper fare.
"And I took you for the most discerning person I knew!" said Tiny very slowly.
"You don't mean to say——"
His eagerness and incredulity arrested his speech.
"Idomean to say."
"That you have—refused him?"
Tiny nodded. "With thanks—not too many."
They stared at one another for some moments longer. Then Erskine sat down on the roller and folded his arms and looked extremely serious, though already the corners of his mouth were beginning to twitch.
"Now, you know, Tiny, I'min loco parentisas long as you're in England. In this one matter you've no business to chaff me. Honestly, now, is it the truth that Lord Manister has asked you to marry him, and that you have said him nay?"
"It is the truest truth I ever uttered in my life. I refused him point-blank," added Tiny, with eyes once more lowered, as though the memory were not unmixed with shame, "and before his own mother!"
"In the presence of Lady Dromard?"
She nodded solemnly, but with a blush.
"Good Lord!" murmured Erskine. "And I was ass enough to think you were leading him on!"
She whispered, "And so I was."
For one moment Erskine stared at her more seriously than ever; then the reaction came, and she saw him shaking. He shook until the tears were in his eyes; and when he was rid of them he perceived the same thing in Tiny's eyes, but obviously not from the same cause.
"Idon't think it's such a joke," said the girl, in the voice of one pained when in pain already. "I am pretty well ashamed ofmyself, I can tell you. If you really consider yourself responsible for me I think you might let me tell you something about it; for you must tell Ruth—I daren't. But if you're going to laugh ... let me tell you it's no laughing matter to me, now I've done it."
"Forgive me," said Holland instantly; "I am a brute. Do tell me anything you care to; I promise not to laugh unless you do. And I might be able to help you."
"Ah, you would if anybody could; but nobody can; I have behaved just scandalously, and I know it as well as you do, now that it's too late. Yet I wish that you knew all about it, Erskine!" She looked at him wistfully. "You understand things so. Would it bore you if I were to tell you how the whole thing happened?"
The gilt hands of the church clock made it ten minutes to six when Erskine shook his head and bent it attentively. When the hour struck he had opened his mouth only once, to answer her question as to how much he knew of her affair with Lord Manister in Melbourne. He had known for a day and a half as much as Ruth knew; and he did not learn much more now, for the girl could speak more freelyof recent incidents, and dwelt principally on those of that afternoon, beginning with Lady Dromard's extraordinary attentiveness on the cricket field.
"I felt there was something behind that, though I didn't know what; I could only be sure that she had her eye on me. However, I took a tremendous vow to face whatever came without moving a muscle. I think I succeeded, on the whole, but I was on the edge of a panic when she took me upstairs. I wanted to clear! I had qualms!"
She was startlingly candid on another point.
"I also made up my mind to behave as prettily as possible, just to show her. I was really pleased with the interest she seemed to take in what I told her about the bush, and I was quite delighted to see a galar again. But I needn't have made the fuss I did in taking it out of its cage; that was purely put on, and all the time I was mortally afraid that it would peck me. Yet I suppose," added Tiny, after some moments, "you won't believe me when I tell you that I am ashamed of all that already?"
Erskine declared that there was nothing in the world to be ashamed of; on the contrary,in his opinion she was perfectly justified in all she had done. With kind eyes upon her, he added what he very nearly meant, that he was proud of her; and his remark wrought a change in her expression which convinced him finally that at least she was not proud of herself.
"Ah, you weren't there, Erskine," said Christina sadly, her blue eyes clouded with penitence; "you don't know how kind poor Lady Dromard was with all her dodges! She said it would be more comfortable to have tea up there. Comfortable was the last thing I felt in my heart, but I never let her see that; and besides, I didn't as yet guess what was coming. Even when she wanted me to tell her my own name, I couldn't be sure that she suspected me. I wasn't sure until she asked me whether the girl had got over it, when I knew from her voice. And I saw then that she really rather liked me, and half wished it to be; and I was sorry because I liked her; and though I spoke my mind to her about her son, I should have made a clean breast of everything to her if he hadn't come in just then. I should have told her straight that I didn't carethatfor him—not now—and that I had been flirting with him disgracefully just to try tomake him smart as I had smarted. That's the whole truth of it, Erskine; and I meant to tell her so in another second, because I couldn't stand her kissing me and crying, and all that. I should have been crying myself next moment. But just thenhecame in, and I remembered everything. I remembered, too, what she had had to do with it, on her own showing; and when I saw what she wanted me to say I think I became possessed."
Her brother-in-law was very curious to know all that Christina had said, but she would not tell him. She merely remarked that he would think all the worse of her if he knew, even though at the moment she could hardly remember any one thing that she had said. Then she paused, and recalled a little, and the little made her blush.
"I didn't come well out of it," she declared.
Erskine threw discredit on her word in this particular matter; he sniffed an extravagant remorse.
"Talk of hitting a man when he's down!" exclaimed Tiny miserably. "I hit Lady Dromard when the tears were in her eyes, and Lord Manister when he was hitting himself. He took it splendidly. He is agentleman. I don't care what else he is—lord or no lord, he would always be a perfect gentleman. What's more, I am very sorry for him."
"Why on earth be sorry for him?" asked Erskine with a touch of irritation; for when Tiny spoke of Lady Dromard's tears, her own eyes swam with them; and to do a thing like this and start crying over it the moment it was done seemed to Erskine a bad sign. The event was so very fresh, and so entirely contrary to his own most recent apprehensions, that at present his only feeling in the matter was one of profound satisfaction. But the symptoms she showed of relenting already interfered not a little with that satisfaction, while, even more than by the remark that had prompted his question, he was alarmed by her answer to it:
"Because I believe he does care for me, a little bit, in his own way—or he thinks he does, which comes to the same thing; and because, when all's said and done, I have treated him like a little fiend!"
"My good girl!" said Holland uneasily, "I should remember how he treated you."
"Ah, no," answered Christina, shaking herhead; "I have remembered that far too long as it is. That's ancient history."
"Well, be sorry for him if you like; be sorry for yourself as well."
That was the best advice that occurred to him at the moment, but it set her off at a tangent.
"I should think I am sorry for myself—I should be sorry for any girl who could so far forget herself!" cried Christina, speaking bitterly and at a great pace. "Shall I tell you the sort of thing I said? When I told him I could not possibly believe in his really caring for me, after the way in which he left Melbourne without so much as saying good-by to me or sending me word that he was going, he said it wasn't then he really loved me, but now. So I told him I was sorry to hear it, as in my case it might perhaps have been then, but it certainly wasn't now. I actually said that! Then Lady Dromard spoke up. She had been staring at me without a word, but she spoke up now, and it served me right. I can't blame her for being indignant, but she didn't say half she could have said, and it was more what she implied that sticks and stings. It didn't sting then, though; I was thinking ofall the talk out there. It was when Lord Manister stopped her, and held out his hand to me and said, 'Anyway you forgive me now? I thought youhadforgiven me'—it was then I began to tingle. I said I forgave him, of course; and then I bolted. But I was sorry for him, and Iamsorry for him, whatever you say, for I had cut him to the heart.... And he looked most awfully nice the whole time!"
With these frivolous last words there came a smile: the normal girl shone out for an instant, as the sun breaks through clouds; and Erskine took advantage of the gleam.
"To the heart of his vanity—that's where you cut. You've humiliated him certainly; but surely he deserved it? In any case, you've given young Manister the right-about; and upon my soul that's rather a performance for our Tiny! I should only like to have seen it."
"It's good of you to call me your Tiny," returned the young girl rather coldly. "But don't talk to me about performances, please, unless you mean disgraceful performances. I wish I had never come to England—I wish I was back in Australia—I wish I was up at thestation!" she cried with sudden passion. "I am miserable, and you won't understand me; and Ruth couldn't if she tried."
"My dear girl," Erskine said in rather an injured tone, "surely you're a little unfair on us both? Ruth will understand when I tell her; and as for me—I think I understand you already."
"Not you!" answered Tiny disdainfully. "You call it a performance! You treat it as a joke!" And she left him, with the tears in her eyes.
He watched her enter the garden by the little gate lower down, and saunter toward the house with lagging steps. The low sun streamed upon her drooping figure. Even at that distance, and with her face hidden from him, she seemed to Erskine the incarnation of all that was wayward and willful and sweet in girlhood. And her tears and temper made her doubly sweet, as the rain draws new fragrance from a flower; but they had also made her doubly difficult to understand. One moment he had seen her plainly, as in the lime light; in another, she had retired to a deeper shade than before. The explanation of her conduct toward Lord Manister had been asufficiently startling revelation, yet a perfectly lucid one; but what of this prompt transition to tears and penitence? The only interpretation which suggested itself to Erskine was one that he refused to entertain. He preferred to attribute Christina's present state of mind to mere reaction; if the reaction had taken a rather hysterical form, that, perhaps, was not to be wondered at. Moreover, this seemed to be indeed the case; for the girl was seen no more that day, save by Ruth, who by night was perhaps the most disappointed person in the parish; only she managed to conceal her disappointment in a way that it was impossible not to admire.
Nevertheless dinner at the rectory was a dismal meal, and the more so for the high spirits of Herbert, which, meeting with no response, turned to silence. Poor Herbert happened to have distinguished himself in the match, which, indeed, he had been largely instrumental in winning for his side; but neither Ruth nor her husband showed any interest in his exploit, and Tiny was not there. Erskine was no cricketer; Herbert hated him for it, and made a sullen attack on the claret. But at length it dawned upon him that therewas some special reason for the silence and glum looks at either end of the table, for which Christina's alleged headache would not in itself account; and when Ruth left the table early to look after Tiny, he said bluntly to Erskine:
"You're enough to give a fellow the blues, the pair of you! What's wrong? Have I done anything, or has Tiny?"
Erskine temporized, pushing forward the claret. "I understandyouhave done something," he said with a first approach to geniality; "but, upon my word, old fellow, I don't know what it is. I couldn't listen, for the life of me; and you must forgive me. Tiny's upset, and that's upset Ruth, which I suppose has upset me in my turn. Please call me names—I deserve them—and then tell me again what you have done."
Herbert did not require two invitations to do this. He had not only acquitted himself brilliantly, but there was a peculiar piquancy in his success; he had saved the side which had treated him with unobtrusive but galling contempt until the last moment, when he opened their eyes, and their throats too. They had put him to field at short leg; during theintervals, after the fall of a wicket, not one of them had spoken a word to him, save good-natured Mr. Willoughby; and they had sent him in last, with hopeless faces, when there were many runs to get. The good batsmen, beginning with Lord Manister, had mostly failed miserably. The Honorable Stanley Dromard, who had been in fine form all the week, had alone done well; and he was still at the wicket when Herbert whipped in, with his ears full of gratuitous instructions to keep his wicket up, and not to try to hit the professional, and his heart full of other designs. Those instructions were given without much knowledge of this young Australian, who took a sincere delight in disregarding them. He had hit out from the very first, particularly at the professional, who disliked being hit, and who was also somewhat demoralized by the extreme respect with which he had been treated by preceding batsmen. There were thirty runs to make when Herbert went in, and in a quarter of an hour he made them nearly all from his own bat, exhibiting an almost insolent amount of coolness and nerve at the crisis. The best of it was that no one had consideredit a crisis when he went in; but his truculent batting had immediately made it one, and ultimately, in a scene of the greatest excitement, of which Herbert was the hero, an almost certain defeat had been converted into a glorious victory. All this was confirmed by the local newspaper next day; considering his achievement and his character, the hero himself told his tale with modesty.
"He bowled like beggary," he concluded, in allusion to the discomfited professional; "but I tell you, old toucher, we were too many measles for him!"
"They were more civil to you after that?"
"My oath!" said Herbert complacently. "Those Eton jokers kicked up hell's delight! Stanley Dromard shook hands with me between the wickets, and said I ought to be going up to Trinity; but he's a real good sportsman, with less side than you'd think. His governor, the earl, congratulated me in person—you bet I felt it down my marrow! He wants to know how it is I'm not playing for the Australians. The only man who didn't say a word to me was that dam' fool Manister."
"Ah, he was on the ground, then?"
"He turned up as I went in; and when I came out he didn't look at me. Who the blazes does he think he is? I'm as good a man as him, though I'm a larrikin and he's a twopenny lord. I don't care what he is, I had the bulge over him to-day—he made four!"
"Perhaps someone else has had the bulge over him, too," suggested Erskine gently.
"Has someone?"
Erskine nodded.
"Our Tiny?"
"Yes; he has asked her to marry him, and she has refused him on the spot."
Herbert shot out of his chair.
"So're you crackin'! I thought something waswrong, man? O Lord, this is a treat!"
"It's a treat she didn't prepare one for. I had visions of a very different upshot."
"Aha! you never know where you have our Tiny. No more does old Manister. Oh, but this is a treat for the gods!"
"I told Tiny it was a performance," Erskine said reflectively; "it struck me as one, and I was trying to cheer her up—but that wasn't the way."
"No? She's a terror, our Tiny!" murmured Herbert, with a running chuckle. "Now Iknow why the brute was so civil to me the first time I met him in these parts. Even then my hand itched to fill his eye for him, but I didn't say anything, because Tiny seemed on the job herself. To think this was her game! I must go and shake hands with her. I must go and tell her she's done better than filling up his eye."
"Don't you," said Erskine quietly. "I wouldn't say much to her afterward, either, if I may give you a hint. She doesn't take quite our view of this matter. Not that we can pretend that ours is at all a nice view of it, mind you; only I really do regard it as a bit of a performance on our Tiny's part, and I should like to have seen it."
"By ghost, so should I! And seriously," added Herbert, "he deserved all he's got. I happen to know."