"I think I can guess something--just something of what it means," she said to herself. "My little Judy--my brave little Judy!"
Judy"s letter was lying hidden all this time under the large pin-cushion on Hilda"s dressing table, but as it was not seen, its contents, which would have explained a good deal, were of course not known.
The dinner which followed this unhappy beginning of the evening was as dismal and constrained as if poor "trumpery" were still present.
Quentyns, like most men who work hard all day, was particular about this meal, and to-night of all nights cook had not sent up the soup to his satisfaction, nor the _entree_ seasoned to his taste. It was all one to Hilda just now what she ate, but Quentyns pushed his plate impatiently away, and kept on referring to the excellent dinner he had had the night before at the Star and Garter. He spoke of his evening as delightful, and of the house of the new friend where he had slept as altogether irreproachable.
Hilda felt that he was talking at her all the time, but she had not the heart to reply to him. The dismal little meal came to a mournful end, and the two went into the drawing room to wait for Rivers" arrival.
Hilda took up a handkerchief she was embroidering for Judy, and took special pleasure in putting in new and exquisite st.i.tches as her thoughts centered themselves in dull wonder and pain round the child.
Quentyns became absorbed in the contents of a novel. He read for half an hour--he was by no means in a good humor, and now and then his eyes were raised to look over the top of the book at his wife. There was a patient sort of suffering about her which irritated him a good bit, as he could see no possible reason to account for it. He asked her one or two questions, which she answered in an abstracted manner.
No, he certainly had not bargained for this sort of thing when he married. Hilda was not only pretty, but she could be, when she liked, sufficiently intellectual to satisfy his requirements. He was fastidious and had peculiar views with regard to women. He hated the so-called clever women, but at the same time he despised the stupid ones. To please him a woman must have tact--she must quickly understand his many moods. She must sympathize when he demanded sympathy, and when he showed by his manner that he wished to be left alone, she must respect his desires. Hitherto, Hilda had abundantly fulfilled his expectations. If Judy had not been in the house, all that he had ever dreamed of in his married life would have come to pa.s.s. But to-night, although Judy was not there to intermeddle, Quentyns felt that, for all the good his wife was doing him, he might as well be a bachelor at his club.
"My dear," he said with some impatience, and forgetting himself not a little, "do you know that you have made precisely the same remark now five times? I did not quarrel with its brilliancy the first time I heard it, but on the fifth occasion I will own that it gave me a certain sense of _ennui_. As I see that your thoughts are miles away, I"ll just run round to the club for a bit and find out if there is anything going on."
Hilda raised her eyes in some surprise. A certain expression in them seemed to expostulate with Jasper, but her lips said nothing; and just at that moment a hansom was heard to bowl up rapidly and stop with a quick jerk at the door. A moment later Rivers entered the drawing room.
He came up at once to Hilda with the air of a man who has a message to deliver.
"Judy hopes you got her note long ere this, Mrs. Quentyns."
"Her note--no; I have not received any," replied Hilda.
"She wrote to you this morning, and put the note under the pin-cushion in your room."
"How romantic and Judy-like!" said Quentyns suddenly. "Quite the correct thing, according to the old-fashioned novels. When the heroine elopes she always leaves a note under the pin-cushion."
"How do you do, Jasper? I did not notice you until this moment," said Rivers. He gave the other man a sharp glance, which suddenly made him feel queer and small. "The only thing old-fashioned that I notice about Judy," he said, "is her n.o.ble unselfishness. She has gone home because--because--I think you can both guess why; an explanation would only be disagreeable. She begged me to tell you, Mrs. Quentyns, that she meant to be really _perfectly_ happy at home, and she hoped you and Jasper would follow her example here. Poor little Giant Killer! she slew an enormous giant to-day, and there are few people I respect as I do that dear little soul. I saw her safely to the Rectory, as, when she came to me, I thought it best to humor what was more a n.o.ble inspiration than a child"s whim. I will say good-night now."
Hilda scarcely said a word while Rivers was speaking. When he left the room, however, she stood still for an instant, listening intently.
Jasper had gone out to see his friend into his hansom. Would he come back? He did for a moment.
"Don"t sit up for me, Hilda," he said; and there was a tone in his voice which caused her heart to sink down low, very low indeed.
She heard the door slam behind him, and then she knew that she was alone. The servants had gone to bed--to all intents and purposes she was absolutely alone in the silent house.
So Judy"s sacrifice was in vain. Judy had thought, by absolutely sacrificing herself, that she could bring this husband and wife together. It was not to be.
Hilda fell on her knees and buried her burning face in the sofa cushions.
"Oh, Judy, little Judy!" she sobbed. "Oh, Judy, what shall I do? My pain is greater than I can bear."
She knelt in this position for a long time. Her little sister"s face was distinctly seen in her mental vision; Judy seemed surrounded by a sort of halo--but what of Jasper? Had all the love which united these two hearts vanished like a dream? Was he never coming back to her? Would he always misunderstand her? Oh, if she thought that, she would not stay with him--she would go back to the Rectory and to Judy, and forget her golden dream and turn back again to the old life. For three months she would have been a wife. She would forget that time. She would own to Jasper that she had made a mistake. She would be Hilda Merton once more.
Alas! alas! that could not be. Vows and ceremonies tied her. She had stood beside the altar and given herself away. There was no going back on that step. Jasper was not the Jasper of her dreams. He must have a small mind not to understand Judy, and she had married him because she thought his mind so big and his heart so great. After all, Judy was far greater than Jasper.
"My little Judy," she murmured again, and then she sank down a pitiable, weak, inconsolable figure on the hearth-rug close to the expiring fire.
She thought over the scenes of the last night and longed to have them back again.
"If Judy"s arms were round me, I should not feel so lonely," she murmured. "Oh, Jasper, how can you turn from me? How can you fail to understand that my heart at least is big enough to love both Judy and you?"
The lamp burnt dimly and the fire went completely out. Hilda presently fell asleep in the darkness, and now a moonbeam shining into the drawing room and falling across her tired face made it look white and unearthly, almost like the face of a dead girl. It was in this att.i.tude that Quentyns found her when he came back somewhere between one and two o"clock.
His conscience was reproaching him, for Rivers, an old friend, had not failed to give him a little spice of his mind; but he was just in that irritable condition where repentance is almost impossible, and when self-abas.e.m.e.nt only leads a man into further wrong-doing.
When he saw Hilda"s tired face, he said to himself with a sort of laugh:
"If I don"t encourage this sort of thing, I shall doubtless be more and more of a tyrant in the eyes of my good wife and that precious fastidious child and Rivers. Well, well, I cannot see the beauty of voluntary martyrdom. If Hilda weren"t quite such a goose, she would have gone to bed two hours ago, instead of falling asleep here to the utter disregard of her health and personal appearance."
So Quentyns, looking cross and uninterested, shook his wife not too gently; spoke in a commonplace tone, out of which he purposely excluded every sc.r.a.p of emotion, and asked her how much longer she wanted to sit up.
Hilda stumbled to her feet without a word. She went upstairs and to bed, but although her husband quickly slept, she lay awake until the morning.
She came down to breakfast, looking tired and f.a.gged. There were black lines under her eyes, and when Quentyns asked her what was the matter, she not only owned to a headache, but burst into tears.
When a man is thoroughly cross, nothing irritates him more than tears on the part of his wife, and Quentyns now so far forgot himself as to rise hastily from the breakfast table and leave the room, slamming the door behind him. He put in his head a moment later to nod to his wife and say good-by.
"If I"m late, don"t wait dinner for me," he said, and then he left the house. Hilda had plenty of time to wipe her tears away in the deserted breakfast room. The pain at her heart was almost greater than she could bear. Her gentle nature was stirred by what she considered gross injustice on the part of her husband.
"He does not care for me any more," she muttered. "I thought him great and brave and good. I know he is clever; I suppose he is great, and perhaps even good; but I am too small and too little for him--I fail to understand him, and he does not love me any more. Oh, if only little Judy had stayed with me I should not feel as broken-hearted as I do at present. if only little Judy had stayed with me, I should loneliness of my life?"
At this moment Hilda"s dismal meditations were interrupted by the sound of carriage wheels, which not only came rattling down the little street, but stopped at the hall door. She started up in a fright, pushed back her disordered hair from her flushed face, and the next moment found herself in the voluminous embrace of Jasper"s aunt, Lady Malvern.
"My dear," exclaimed that good lady, "I must apologize for not looking you up sooner, but I have been particularly busy; for Cynthia, my eldest girl, has just got engaged and we are to have a wedding in the autumn and all kinds of fuss; but I have not forgotten you, Hilda, and I have just come to carry you off for the day. It is a lovely day, and we are all going to drive to Richmond to picnic in the park. Run upstairs, my love, and put on your hat and gloves. I mean to carry you off immediately."
"But Jasper has just gone to town--he will be so sorry to have missed you," said Hilda.
"Well, I suppose I can endure life even though I have missed Jasper,"
said Lady Malvern with a laugh. "In any case I want you, and so does Cynthia. Cynthia has taken a great fancy to you, Hilda; so run away and get ready. I will send a wire to your husband to come down and join us later on. There now, will that content you, you poor, devoted little soul?"
Hilda smiled and a faint color came into her cheeks.
"Run up to your room, my dear," said good-natured Lady Malvern. "Be as quick as ever you can getting into the prettiest costume you have, for we are to be quite a gay party, I can tell you. Now run off, dear, run off, and pray don"t keep me waiting a moment longer than you can help."
Lady Malvern was the sort of person who never could bear anyone to say "no" to her, and Hilda at first unwillingly, but presently with a sort of elation and even defiance which was altogether foreign to her gentle nature, prepared to make herself smart for her unexpected gayety. She went upstairs, pulled out one of her prettiest trousseau dresses, and, with hands that trembled, began to array herself in it.
Meanwhile Lady Malvern sat perfectly still in the tiny little dining room, with a somewhat troubled look on her good-tempered face.
"Now, what has Jasper been doing?" she said to herself. "That sweet child doesn"t look happy. Marks of tears round her eyes, flushed cheeks--very low spirits. Dear, dear! this will never do. Not more than three months from the wedding-day."
Lady Malvern had seen very little of her nephew since his marriage. She knew nothing, therefore, about Judy; but she was just that fussy, good-natured, hearty sort of body who could not bear anyone with whom she came in contact to be miserable.
"I must set this right somehow or other," she said to herself. "Jasper doesn"t understand Hilda, and Hilda is wretched, and thinks, poor dear little goose, that the sun will never shine again, and that life is practically over for her. She does not know, how could she, poor darling, how many rubs married people have to live through, and how jolly and comfortable they are notwithstanding them. Well, well, I am glad I called. I must set things right between this pair, whatever happens."
Lady Malvern little guessed, however, that she personally was to have very little to do with smoothing the rumpled rose-leaves in Hilda"s and Jasper"s lives.
When Mrs. Quentyns returned to the little dining room the flush on her cheeks and the softened look in her sweet eyes but added to her beauty, and when she found herself bowling away through the pleasant spring air in her kind friend"s company, in spite of herself, her spirits could not help rising.
Lady Malvern had a house in Hans Place, and there Cynthia and two younger girls were waiting for them.