Part 6

I told her how poor mamma had been rather an accident, and was nobody much. “One could not tell, you see, she might have had any quaint creature beyond the grandparents--perhaps I am mixed with Red Indian, or nigger.”

She looked at me searchingly.

“No, you are not, you are Venetian--that is it--some wicked, beautiful friend of a Doge come to life again.”

“I know I am wicked,” I said; “I am always told it, but I have not done anything yet, or had any fun out of it, and I do want to.”

She laughed again.

“Well, you must come to London with me when I leave here on Saturday, and we will see what we can do.”

This sounded so nice, and yet I had a feeling that I wanted to refuse; if there had been a tone of patronage in her voice, I would have in a minute. We sat and talked a long time, and she did tell me some interesting things. The world, she assured me, was a delightful place if one could escape bores, and had a good cook and a few friends. After a while I left her, as she suddenly thought she would come down to luncheon.

“I don’t think it would be safe, at the present stage, to leave you alone with Robert,” she said.

I was angry.

“I have promised not to play with him, is that not enough!” I exclaimed.

“Do you know, I believe it is, Snake-girl!” she said, and there was something wistful in her eyes, “but you are twenty, and I am past thirty, and--he is a man!--so one can’t be too careful!” Then she laughed, and I left her putting a toe into a blue satin slipper, and ringing for her maid.

I don’t think age can matter much, she is far far more attractive than any girl, and she need not pretend she is afraid of me. But the thing that struck me then, and has always struck me since is that to have to _hold_ a man by one’s own manœuvres could not be agreeable to one’s self-respect. I would _never_ do that under any circumstances; if he would not stay because it was the thing he wanted to do most in the world, he might go. I should say, “_Je m’en fiche!_”

At luncheon, for which the guns came in,--no nice picnic in a lodge as at Branches--I purposely sat between two old gentlemen, and did my best to be respectful and intelligent. One was quite a nice old thing, and at the end began paying me compliments. He laughed, and laughed at everything I said. Opposite me were Malcolm and Lord Robert, with Lady Ver between them. They both looked sulky. It was quite a while before she could get them gay and pleasant. I did not enjoy myself.

After it was over, Lord Robert deliberately walked up to me.

“Why are you so capricious?” he asked. “I won’t be treated like this, you know very well I have only come here to see you. We are such friends--or were. Why?”

Oh! I did want to say I was friends still, and would love to talk to him. He seemed so adorably good looking, and such a shape! and his blue eyes had the nicest flash of anger in them.

I could have kept my promise to the letter, and yet broken it in the spirit, easily enough, by letting him understand by inference--but of course one could not be so mean as that, when one was going to eat her salt, so I looked out of the window, and answered coldly that I was quite friendly, and did not understand him, and I immediately turned to my old gentleman, and walked with him into the library. In fact I was as cool as I could be without being actually rude, but all the time there was a flat, heavy feeling round my heart. He looked so cross and reproachful, and I did not like him to think me capricious.

We did not see them again until tea; the sportsmen, I mean. But tea at Tryland is not a friendly time. It is just as stiff as other meals. Lady Ver never let Lord Robert leave her side, and immediately after tea everybody who stayed in the drawing-room played bridge, where they were planted until the dressing-bell rang.

One would have thought Lady Katherine would have disapproved of cards, but I suppose every one must have one contradiction about them, for she loves bridge, and played for the lowest stakes with the air of a “needy adventurer” as the books say.

I can’t write the whole details of the rest of the visit. I was miserable, and that is the truth. Fate seemed to be against Lord Robert speaking to me--even when he tried--and I felt I must be extra cool and nasty because I--Oh! well, I may as well say it--he attracts me very much. I never once looked at him from under my eyelashes, and after the next day, he did not even try to have an explanation.

He glanced with wrath sometimes--especially when Malcolm hung over me--and Lady Ver said his temper was dreadful.

She was so sweet to me, it almost seemed as if she wanted to make up to me for not letting me play with Lord Robert.

(Of course I would not allow her to see I minded that.)

And finally Friday came, and the last night.

I sat in my room from tea until dinner. I could not stand Malcolm any longer. I had fenced with him rather well up to that, but that promise of mine hung over me. I nipped him every time he attempted to explain what it was, and to this moment l don’t know, but it did not prevent him from saying tiresome, loving things, mixed with priggish advice. I don’t know what would have happened only when he got really horribly affectionate just after tea I was so exasperated, I launched this bomb.

“I don’t believe a word you are saying--your real interest is Angela Grey.”

He nearly had a fit, and shut up at once. So, of course, it is not a horse. I felt sure of it. Probably one of those people Mrs. Carruthers said all young men knew; their adolescent measles and chicken-pox she called them.

All the old men talked a great deal to me; and even the other two young ones, but these last days I did not seem to have any of my usual spirits. Just as we were going to bed on Friday night Lord Robert came up to Lady Ver--she had her hand through my arm.

“I can come to the play with you to-morrow night, after all,” he said. “I have wired to Campion to make a fourth, and you will get some other woman, won’t you?”

“I will try,” said Lady Ver, and she looked right into his eyes, then she turned to me. “I shall feel so cruel leaving you alone, Evangeline” (at once almost she called me Evangeline, I should never do that with strangers), “but I suppose you ought not to be seen at a play just yet.”

“I like being alone,” I said. “I shall go to sleep early.”

Then they settled to dine all together at her house, and go on; so, knowing I should see him again, I did not even say good-bye to Lord Robert, and he left by the early train.

A number of the guests came up to London with us.

My leavetaking with Lady Katherine had been coldly cordial. I thanked her deeply for her kindness in asking me there. She did not renew the invitation; I expect she felt a person like I am, who would have to look after herself, was not a suitable companion to her altar-cloth and poker workers.

Up to now--she told Lady Ver--of course I had been most carefully brought up and taken care of by Mrs. Carruthers, although she had not approved of her views. And having done her best for me at this juncture, saving me from staying alone with Mr. Carruthers, she felt it was all she was called upon to do. She thought my position would become too unconventional for their circle in future! Lady Ver told me all this with great glee. She was sure it would amuse me, it so amused her--but it made me a teeny bit remember the story of the boys and the frogs!

Lady Ver now and then puts out a claw which scratches, while she ripples with laughter. Perhaps she does not mean it.

This house is nice, and full of pretty things as far as I have seen. We arrived just in time to fly into our clothes for dinner. I am in a wee room four stories up, by the three angels. I was down first, and Lord Robert and Mr. Campion were in the drawing-room. Sir Charles Verningham is in Paris, by the way, so I have not seen him yet.

Lord Robert was stroking the hair of the eldest angel, who had not gone to bed. The loveliest thing she is, and so polite, and different from Mary Mackintosh’s infants.

He introduced Mr. Campion stiffly, and returned to Mildred--the angel.

Suddenly mischief came into me, the reaction from the last dull days, so I looked straight at Mr. Campion from under my eyelashes, and it had the effect it always has on people, he became interested at once. I don’t know why this does something funny to them. I remember I first noticed it in the schoolroom at Branches. I was doing a horrible exercise upon the _Participe Passé_, and feeling very _égarée_, when one of the old Ambassadors came in to see Mademoiselle. I looked up quickly, with my head a little down, and he said to Mademoiselle, in a low voice, in German, that I had the strangest eyes he had ever seen, and that up look under the eyelashes was the affair of the devil!

Now I knew even then the affair of the devil is something attractive, so I have never forgotten it, although I was only about fifteen at the time. I always determined I would try it when I grew up, and wanted to create emotions. Except Mr. Carruthers and Lord Robert I have never had much chance though.

Mr. Campion sat down beside me on a sofa, and began to say at once that I ought to be going to the play with them; I spoke in my velvet voice, and said I was in too deep mourning, and he apologized so nicely, rather confused.

He is quite a decent-looking person, smart and well-groomed, like Lord Robert, but not that lovely shape. We talked on for about ten minutes. I said very little, but he never took his eyes off my face. All the time I was conscious that Lord Robert was fidgeting and playing with a china cow that was on a table near, and just before the butler announced Mrs. Fairfax, he dropped it on the floor, and broke its tail off.

Mrs. Fairfax is not pretty; she has reddish gold hair, with brown roots, and a very dark skin, but it is nicely done--the hair, I mean, and perhaps the skin too, as sideways you can see the pink sticking up on it. It must be rather a nuisance to have to do all that, but it is certainly better than looking like Mary Mackintosh. She doesn’t balance nicely, bits of her are too long, or too short. I do like to see everything in the right place--like Lord Robert’s figure. Lady Ver came in just then, and we all went down to dinner. Mrs. Fairfax gushed at her a good deal. Lady Ver does not like her much, she told me in the train, but she was obliged to wire to her to come, as she could not get any one else Mr. Campion liked, on so short a notice.

“The kind of woman every one knows, and who has no sort of pride,” she said.

Well, even when I am really an adventuress I sha’n’t be like that.

Dinner was very gay.

Lady Ver, away from her decorous relations, is most amusing. She says anything that comes into her head. Mrs. Fairfax got cross because Mr. Campion would speak to me, but as I did not particularly take to her, I did not mind, and just amused myself. As the party was so small Lord Robert and I were obliged to talk a little, and once or twice I forgot, and let myself be natural and smile at him. His eyebrows went up in that questioning pathetic way he has, and he looked so attractive--that made me remember again, and instantly turn away. When we were coming into the hall, while Lady Ver and Mrs. Fairfax were up putting on their cloaks, Lord Robert came up close to me, and whispered:

“I _can’t_ understand you. There is some reason for your treating me like this, and I will find it out! Why are you so cruel, little wicked tiger cat!” and he pinched one of my fingers until I could have cried out.

That made me so angry.

“How dare you touch me!” I said. “It is because you know I have no one to take care of me that you presume like this!”

I felt my eyes blaze at him, but there was a lump in my throat, I would not have been hurt, if it had been anyone else--only angry--but he had been so respectful and gentle with me at Branches--and I had liked him so much. It seemed more cruel for him to be impertinent now.

His face fell, indeed, all the fierceness went out of it, and he looked intensely miserable.

“Oh! don’t say that!” he said, in a choked voice. “I--oh! that is the one thing, you know is not true.”

Mr. Campion, with his fur coat fastened, came up at that moment, saying gallant things, and insinuations that we must meet again, but I said good-night quietly, and came up the stairs without a word more to Lord Robert.

“Good-night, Evangeline, pet,” Lady Ver said, when I met her on the drawing-room landing, coming down. “I do feel a wretch leaving you, but to-morrow I will really try and amuse you. You look very pale, child--the journey has tried you probably.”

“Yes, I am tired,” I tried to say in a natural voice, but the end word shook a little, and Lord Robert was just behind, having run up the stairs after me, so I fear he must have heard.

“Miss Travers--please--” he implored, but I walked on up the next flight, and Lady Ver put her hand on his arm, and drew him down with her, and as I got up to the fourth floor I heard the front door shut.

And now they are gone, and I am alone. My tiny room is comfortable, and the fire is burning brightly. I have a big armchair and books, and this, my journal, and all is cosy--only I feel so miserable.

I won’t cry and be a silly coward.

Why, of course it is amusing to be free. And I am _not_ grieving over Mrs. Carruthers’ death--only perhaps I am lonely, and I wish I were at the theatre. No, I don’t--I--oh, the thing I do wish is that--that--_No_, I won’t write it even.

Good-night, Journal!

300, PARK STREET, _Wednesday November 23rd._

OH! how silly to want the moon! but that is evidently what is the matter with me. Here I am in a comfortable house with a kind hostess, and no immediate want of money, and yet I am restless, and sometimes unhappy.

For the four days since I arrived Lady Ver has been so kind to me, taken the greatest pains to try and amuse me, and cheer me up. We have driven about in her electric brougham and shopped, and agreeable people have been to lunch each day, and I have had what I suppose is a _succès_. At least she says so.

I am beginning to understand things better, and it seems one must have no real feelings, just as Mrs. Carruthers always told me, if one wants to enjoy life.

On two evenings Lady Ver has been out with numbers of regrets at leaving me behind, and I have gathered she has seen Lord Robert, but he has not been here--I am glad to say.

I am real friends with the angels, who are delightful people, and very well brought up. Lady Ver evidently knows much better about it than Mary Mackintosh, although she does not talk in that way.

I can’t think what I am going to do next. I suppose soon this kind of drifting will seem quite natural, but at present the position galls me for some reason. I _hate_ to think people are being kind out of charity. How very foolish of me, though!

Lady Merrenden is coming to lunch to-morrow. I am interested to see her, because Lord Robert said she was such a dear. I wonder what has become of him, that he has not been here--I wonder. No, I am _too_ silly.

Lady Ver does not get up to breakfast, and I go into her room, and have mine on another little tray, and we talk, and she reads me bits out of her letters.

She seems to have a number of people in love with her--that must be nice.

“It keeps Charlie always devoted,” she said, “because he realizes he owns what the other men want.”

She says, too, that all male creatures are fighters by nature, they don’t value things they obtain easily, and which are no trouble to keep. You must always make them realize you will be off like a snipe if they relax their efforts to please you for one moment.

Of course there are heaps of humdrum ways of living, where the husband is quite fond, but it does not make his heart beat, and Lady Ver says she couldn’t stay on with a man whose heart she couldn’t make beat when she wanted to.

I am curious to see Sir Charles.

They play bridge a good deal in the afternoon, and it amuses me a little to talk nicely to the man who is out for the moment, and make him not want to go back to the game.

I am learning a number of things.

_Night._

MR. CARRUTHERS came to call this afternoon. He was the last person I expected to see when I went into the drawing-room after luncheon, to wait for Lady Ver. I had my outdoor things on, and a big black hat, which is rather becoming, I am glad to say.

“You here!” he exclaimed, as we shook hands.

“Yes, why not?” I said.

He looked very self-contained, and reserved, I thought, as if he had not the least intention of letting himself go to display any interest. It instantly aroused in me an intention to change all that.

“Lady Verningham kindly asked me to spend a few days with her when we left Tryland,” I said, demurely.

“Oh! you are staying here! Well, I was over at Tryland the day before yesterday--an elaborate invitation from Lady Katherine to ‘dine and sleep quietly,’ which I only accepted as I thought I should see you.”

“How good of you,” I said, sweetly. “And did they not tell you I had gone with Lady Verningham?”

“Nothing of the kind. They merely announced that you had departed for London, so I supposed it was your original design of Claridge’s, and I intended going round there some time to find you.”

Again I said it was so good of him, and I looked down.

He did not speak for a second or two, and I remained perfectly still.

“What are your plans?” he asked abruptly.

“I have no plans----”

“But you must have--that is ridiculous--you must have made some decision as to where you are going to live!”

“No, I assure you,” I said, calmly, “when I leave here on Saturday, I shall just get into a cab, and think of some place for it to take me to, I suppose, as we turn down Park Lane.”

He moved uneasily, and I glanced at him up from under my hat. I don’t know why he does not attract me now as much as he did at first. There is something so cold and cynical about his face.

“Listen, Evangeline,” he said at last. “Something must be settled for you--I cannot allow you to drift about like this. I am more or less your guardian--you know--you must feel that.”

“I don’t a bit,” I said.

“You impossible little--witch!” he came closer.

“Yes, Lady Verningham says I am a witch, and a snake, and all sorts of bad attractive things, and I want to go somewhere where I shall be able to show these qualities! England is dull--what do you think of Paris?”

Oh! it did amuse me, launching forth these remarks. They would never come into my head for any one else!

He walked across the room and back. His face was disturbed.

“You shall not go to Paris--alone. How can you even suggest such a thing,” he said.

I did not speak. He grew exasperated.

“Your father’s people are all dead, you tell me, and you know nothing of your mother’s relations, but who was she? What was her name? Perhaps we could discover some kith and kin for you.”

“My mother was called Miss Tonkins,” I said.

“_Called_ Miss Tonkins?”

“Yes.”

“Then it was not her name--what do you mean?”

I hated these questions.

“I suppose it was her name. I never heard she had another.”

“Tonkins,” he said, “Tonkins?” and he looked searchingly at me, with his monk of the Inquisition air.

I can be so irritating not telling people things when I like, and it was quite a while before he elicited the facts from me, which Mrs. Carruthers had often hurled at my head in moments of anger, that poor mamma’s father had been Lord de Brandreth, and her mother Heaven knows who!

“So you see”--I ended with--“I haven’t any relations, after all, have I?”

He sat down upon the sofa.

“Evangeline, there is nothing for it, you must marry me,” he said.

I sat down opposite him.

“Oh! you are funny!” I said. “You, a clever diplomat, to know so little of women. Who in the world would accept such an offer!” and I laughed, and laughed.

“What am I to do with you!” he exclaimed, angrily.

“Nothing!” I laughed still, and I looked at him with my “affair of the devil” look. He came over, and forcibly took my hand.

“Yes, you are a witch,” he said. “A witch who casts spells, and destroys resolutions and judgements. I determined to forget you, and put you out of my life--you are most unsuitable to me, you know, but as soon as I see you I am filled with only one desire. I _must_ have you for myself--I want to kiss you--to touch you. I want to prevent any other man from looking at you--do you hear me, Evangeline?”

“Yes, I hear,” I said. “But it does not have any effect on me. You would be awful as a husband. Oh! I know all about them!” and I looked up. “I saw several sorts at Tryland, and Lady Verningham has told me of the rest; and I know you would be no earthly good in that _rôle_!”

He laughed, in spite of himself, but he still held my hand.

“Describe their types to me, that I may see which I should be,” he said, with great seriousness.

“There is the Mackintosh kind--humble and ‘titsy-pootsy,’ and a sort of under nurse,” I said.

“That is not my size, I fear.”

“Then there is the Montgomerie, selfish and bullying, and near about money----”

“But I am not Scotch.”

“No--well, Lord Kestervin was English, and he fussed and worried, and looked out trains all the time.”

“I shall have a groom of the chambers.”

“And they were all casual and indifferent to their poor wives! and boresome, and bored!! And one told long stories, and one was stodgy, and one opened his wife’s letters before she was down!”

“Tell me the attributes of a perfect husband, then, that I may learn them,” he said.

“They have to pay all the bills.”

“Well, I could do that.”

“And they have not to interfere with one’s movements. And one must be able to make their hearts beat.”

“Well, you could do _that_!” and he bent nearer to me. I drew back.

“And they have to take long journeys to the Rocky Mountains for months together, with men friends.”

“Certainly not!” he exclaimed.

“There, you see!” I said, “the most important part you don’t agree to. There is no use talking further.”

“Yes, there is! You have not said half enough--have they to make your heart beat, too?”

“You are hurting my hand.”

He dropped it.

“Have they?”

“Lady Ver said no husband could do that--the fact of there being one kept your heart quite quiet, and often made you yawn--but she said it was not necessary, as long as you could make theirs, so that they would do all you asked.”

“Then do women’s hearts never beat--did she tell you?”

“Of course they beat! How simple you are for thirty years old. They beat constantly for--oh--for people who are not husbands.”

“That is the result of your observations, is it? You are probably right, and I am a fool.”

“Some one said at lunch yesterday that a beautiful lady in Paris had her heart beating for you,” I said, looking at him again.

He changed--so very little, it was not a start, or a wince even--just enough for me to know he felt what I said.

“People are too kind,” he said. “But we have got no nearer the point. When will you marry me?”

“I shall marry you--never, Mr. Carruthers,” I said, “unless I get into an old maid soon, and no one else asks me. Then if you go on your knees I may put out the tip of my finger, perhaps!” and I moved towards the door, making him a sweeping and polite curtsey.

He rushed after me.

“Evangeline!” he exclaimed, “I am not a violent man as a rule, indeed I am rather cool, but you would drive any one perfectly mad. Some day some one will strangle you--Witch!”

“Then I had better run away to save my neck,” I said, laughing over my shoulder as I opened the door and ran up the stairs, and I peeped at him from the landing above. He had come out into the hall. “Good-bye,” I called, and without waiting to see Lady Ver he tramped down the stairs and away.