"How dare you! It"s not true. Oh Mr. Wynne, indeed it"s not true!"
Whether it were true or not I did not know. But if it had been, Miss Trix Queenborough might have been expected to act very much in the way in which she proceeded to act: that is to say, to be extravagantly attentive to Lord Newhaven when Jack Ives was present, and markedly neglectful of him in the curate"s absence. It also fitted in very well with the theory which I had ventured to hint that her bearing toward Mrs. Wentworth was distinguished by a stately civility, and her remarks about that lady by a superfluity of laudation; for if these be not two distinguishing marks of rivalry in the well-bred, I must go back to my favorite books and learn from them--more folly. And if Trix"s manners were all that they should be, praise no less high must be accorded to Mrs. Wentworth"s; she attained an alt.i.tude of admirable unconsciousness and conducted her flirtation (the poverty of language forces me to the word, but it is over-flippant) with the curate in a staid, quasi-maternal way. She called him a delightful boy, and said that she was intensely interested in all his aims and hopes.
"What does she want?" I asked Dora despairingly. "She can"t want to marry him." I was referring to Trix Queenborough, not to Mrs.
Wentworth.
"Good gracious, no!" answered Dora, irritably. "It"s simple jealousy.
She won"t let the poor boy alone till he"s in love with her again.
It"s a horrible shame!"
"Oh, well, he has great recuperative power," said I.
"She"d better be careful, though. It"s a very dangerous game. How do you suppose Lord Newhaven likes it?"
Accident gave me that very day a hint how little Lord Newhaven liked it, and a glimpse of the risk Miss Trix was running. Entering the library suddenly, I heard Newhaven"s voice raised above his ordinary tones.
"I won"t stand it!" he was declaring. "I never know how she"ll treat me from one minute to the next."
My entrance, of course, stopped the conversation very abruptly.
Newhaven had come to a stand in the middle of the room, and Lady Queenborough sat on the sofa, a formidable frown on her brow.
Withdrawing myself as rapidly as possible, I argued the probability of a severe lecture for Miss Trix, ending in a command to try her n.o.ble suitor"s patience no longer. I hope all this happened, for I, not seeing why Mrs. Wentworth should monopolize the grace of sympathy, took the liberty of extending mine to Newhaven. He was certainly in love with Trix, not with her money, and the treatment he underwent must have been as trying to his feelings as it was galling to his pride.
My sympathy was not premature, for Miss Trix"s fascinations, which were indubitably great, began to have their effect. The scene about the canoe was re-enacted, but with a different denouement. This time the promise was forgotten, and the widow forsaken. Then Mrs. Wentworth put on her armor. We had, in fact, reached this very absurd situation, that these two ladies were contending for the favors of, or the domination over, such an obscure, poverty-stricken, hopelessly ineligible person as the curate of Poltons undoubtedly was. The position seemed to me then, and still seems, to indicate some remarkable qualities in that young man.
At last Newhaven made a move. At breakfast, on Wednesday morning, he announced that, reluctant as he should be to leave Poltons Park, he was due at his aunt"s place, in Kent, on Sat.u.r.day evening, and must, therefore, make his arrangements to leave by noon on that day. The significance was apparent. Had he come down to breakfast with "Now or Never!" stamped in fiery letters across his brow, it would have been more obtrusive, indeed, but not a whit plainer. We all looked down at our plates, except Jack Ives. He flung one glance (I saw it out of the corner of my left eye) at Newhaven, another at Trix; then he remarked kindly:
"We shall be uncommonly sorry to lose you, Newhaven."
Events began to happen now, and I will tell them as well as I am able, supplementing my own knowledge by what I learned afterward from Dora--she having learned it from the actors in the scene. In spite of the solemn warning conveyed in Newhaven"s intimation, Trix, greatly daring, went off immediately after lunch for what she described as "a long ramble" with Mr. Ives. There was, indeed, the excuse of an old woman at the end of the ramble, and Trix provided Jack with a small basket of comforts for the useful old body; but the ramble was, we felt, the thing, and I was much annoyed at not being able to accompany the walkers in the cloak of darkness or other invisible contrivance.
The ramble consumed three hours--full measure. Indeed, it was half-past six before Trix, alone, walked up the drive. Newhaven, a solitary figure, paced up and down the terrace fronting the drive.
Trix came on, her head thrown back and a steady smile on her lips. She saw Newhaven; he stood looking at her for a moment with what she afterward described as an indescribable smile on his face, but not, as Dora understood from her, by any means a pleasant one. Yet, if not pleasant, there is not the least doubt in the world that it was highly significant, for she cried out nervously: "Why are you looking at me like that? What"s the matter?"
Newhaven, still saying nothing, turned his back on her, and made as if he would walk into the house and leave her there, ignored, discarded, done with. She, realizing the crisis which had come, forgetting everything except the imminent danger of losing him once for all, without time for long explanation or any round-about seductions, ran forward, laying her hand on his arm and blurting out:
"But I"ve refused him."
I do not know what Newhaven thinks now, but I sometimes doubt whether he would not have been wiser to shake off the detaining hand, and pursue his lonely way, first into the house, and ultimately to his aunt"s. But (to say nothing of the twenty thousand a year, which, after all, and be you as romantic as you may please to be, is not a thing to be sneezed at) Trix"s face, its mingled eagerness and shame, its flushed cheeks and shining eyes, the piquancy of its unwonted humility, overcame him. He stopped dead.
"I--I was obliged to give him an--an opportunity," said Miss Trix, having the grace to stumble a little in her speech. "And--and it"s all your fault."
The war was thus, by happy audacity, carried into Newhaven"s own quarters.
"My fault!" he exclaimed. "My fault that you walk all day with that curate!"
Then Miss Trix--and let no irrelevant considerations mar the appreciation of fine acting--dropped her eyes and murmured softly:
"I--I was so terribly afraid of seeming to expect YOU."
Wherewith she (and not he) ran away lightly up the stairs, turning just one glance downward as she reached the landing. Newhaven was looking up from below with an "enchanted" smile--the word is Trix"s own; I should probably have used a different one.
Was then the curate of Poltons utterly defeated--brought to his knees, only to be spurned? It seemed so; and he came down to dinner that night with a subdued and melancholy expression. Trix, on the other hand, was brilliant and talkative to the last degree, and the gayety spread from her all around the table, leaving untouched only the rejected lover and Mrs. Wentworth; for the last named lady, true to her distinguishing quality, had begun to talk to poor Jack Ives in low, soothing tones.
After dinner Trix was not visible; but the door of the little boudoir beyond stood half-open, and very soon Newhaven edged his way through.
Almost at the same moment Jack Ives and Mrs. Wentworth pa.s.sed out of the window and began to walk up and down the gravel. n.o.body but myself appeared to notice these remarkable occurrences, but I watched them with keen interest. Half an hour pa.s.sed, and then there smote on my watchful ear the sound of a low laugh from the boudoir. It was followed almost immediately by a stranger sound from the gravel walk.
Then, all in a moment, two things happened. The boudoir door opened, and Trix, followed by Newhaven, came in, smiling; from the window entered Jack Ives and Mrs. Wentworth. My eyes were on the curate. He gave one sudden, comprehending glance toward the other couple; then he took the widow"s hand, led her up to Dora, and said, in low yet penetrating tones.
"Will you wish us joy, Mrs. Polton?"
The squire, Rippleby, and Algy Stanton were round them in an instant.
I kept my place, watching now the face of Trix Queenborough. She turned first flaming red, then very pale. I saw her turn to Newhaven and speak one or two urgent, imperative words to him. Then, drawing herself up to her full height, she crossed the room to where the group was a.s.sembled round Mrs. Wentworth and Jack Ives.
"What"s the matter? What are you saying?" she asked.
Mrs. Wentworth"s eyes were modestly cast down, but a smile played round her mouth. No one spoke for a moment. Then Jack Ives said:
"Mrs. Wentworth has promised to be my wife, Miss Queenborough."
For a moment, hardly perceptible, Trix hesitated; then, with the most winning, touching, sweetest smile in the world, she said:
"So you took my advice, and our afternoon walk was not wasted, after all?"
Mrs. Polton is not used to these fine flights of diplomacy; she had heard before dinner something of what had actually happened in the afternoon; and the simple woman positively jumped. Jack Ives met Trix"s scornful eyes full and square.
"Not at all wasted," said he, with a smile. "Not only has it shown me where my true happiness lies, but it has also given me a juster idea of the value and sincerity of your regard for me, Miss Queenborough."
"It is as real, Mr. Ives, as it is sincere," said she.
"It is like yourself, Miss Queenborough," said he, with a little bow; and he turned from her and began to talk to his fiancee.
Trix Queenborough moved slowly toward where I sat. Newhaven was watching her from where he stood alone on the other side of the room.
"And have you no news for us?" I asked in low tones.
"Thank you," she said haughtily; "I don"t care that mine should be a pendent to the great tidings about the little widow and curate."
After a moment"s pause she went on:
"He lost no time, did he? He was wise to secure her before what happened this afternoon could leak out. n.o.body can tell her now."
"This afternoon?"
"He asked me to marry him this afternoon."
"And you refused?"
"Yes."
"Well, his behavior is in outrageously bad taste, but----"