When he met Miss Bruce at Lady Goldthred"s, no doubt he admired her beauty and approved of her manner, but it was neither beauty nor manner, nor could he have explained what it was, that caused the pulses within him to stir, as they stirred long ago--that brought back a certain flavour of the old draught he had quaffed so eagerly, to find it so bitter at the dregs. Another meeting with Maud, a dance or two, a whisper on a crowded staircase, and Lord Bearwarden told himself that the deep wound had healed at last; that the gra.s.s was growing fresh and fair over the grave of a dead love; that for him too, as for others, there might still be an interest in the chances of the great game.
Surely the blind restored to sight is more grateful, more joyous, more triumphant, than he who, born in darkness, finds himself overwhelmed and dazzled with the glare of his new gift!
Some men are so strangely const.i.tuted that they like a woman all the better for "snubbing" them. Lord Bearwarden had never felt so grave an interest in Miss Bruce as when he entered the barracks under the impression she had cut him dead, without the slightest pretext or excuse.
Not so Tom Ryfe. In that gentleman"s mind mingled the several disagreeable sensations of surprise, anger, jealousy, and disgust. Of these he chewed the bitter cud while he rode home, wondering with whom Miss Bruce could thus dare to parade herself in public, maddened at the open rebellion inferred by so ignoring his presence and his love, vowing to revenge himself without delay by tightening the curb and making her feel, to her cost, the hold he possessed over her person and her actions. By the time he reached his uncle"s house, he had made up his mind to demand an explanation, to come to a final understanding, to a.s.sert his authority, and to avenge his pride. He turned pale to see Maud"s monogram on the envelope of a letter that had arrived during his absence; paler still, when from this letter a thin slip of stamped paper fluttered to the floor--white to the very lips while he read the sharp, decisive, cruel lines that accounted for its presence in the missive, and that bade him relinquish at a word all the hope and happiness of his life. Without unb.u.t.toning his coat, without removing the hat from his head, or the gloves from his hands, he sat fiercely down, and wrote his answer.
"You think to get rid of me, Miss Bruce, as you would get rid of an unsuitable servant, by giving him his wages and bidding him to go about his business. You imagine that the debt between us is such as a sum of money can at once wipe out: that because you have been able to raise this money (and how you did so I think I have a right to ask) our business connection ceases, and the _lover_, inconvenient, no doubt, from his priority of claim, must go to the wall directly the _lawyer_ has been paid his bill. You never were more mistaken in your life. Have you forgotten a certain promise I hold of yours, written in your own hand, signed with your own signature, furnished, as itself attests, of your own free will? and do you think I am a likely man to forego such an advantage? You might have had me for a friend--how dear a friend I cannot bear to tell you now. If you persist in making me an enemy, you have but yourself to blame. I am not given to threaten; and you know that I can generally fulfil what I promise. I give you fair warning then: so surely as you try, in the faintest item, to elude your bargain, so surely will I cross your path, and spoil your game, and show you up before the world. Mine you are, and mine you shall be.
If of free will, happily; if not, then to your misery and my own. But, mark me, always _mine_!"
"The wisest clerks are not the wisest men." It is a bad plan ever to drive a woman into a corner; and with all his knowledge of law, I think Mr. Ryfe could hardly have written a more ill-advised and injudicious letter than the above to Miss Bruce.
CHAPTER XI
IN THE SCALES
It was a declaration of war. Of all women in the world--and this is saying a great deal--Maud was perhaps the least disposed to accept anything like usurpation, or a.s.sumption of undue authority, especially on the part of one in whose character she had detected an element of weakness. Tom Ryfe, notwithstanding his capabilities, was a fool, like most others, where his feelings were touched, and proved it by the injudicious means he used to attain the end he so desired.
Locked in her own room, she read his letter over and over again, with a bitter curl of her lip, that denoted hatred, scorn, even contempt.
When a man has been unfortunate enough to excite the last of these amiable feelings, he should lose no time in decamping, for the game is wholly and irretrievably lost. Mr. Ryfe would have felt this, could he have seen the gestures of the woman he loved, while she tore his letter into shreds--could he have marked the carriage of her haughty head, the compression of her sweet, resolute lips, the fierce energy of her white, cruel hands. Maud paced the floor for some half-dozen turns, opened the window, arranged the bottles on her toilet-table, the flowers on her chimney-piece, even took a good long look at herself in the gla.s.s, and sat down to think.
For weeks she had been revolving in her mind the necessity of breaking with Tom Ryfe, the policy of securing position and freedom by an early marriage. That odious letter decided her; and now it only remained to make her choice. There are women--and these, though sometimes the most fascinating, by no means the most trustworthy of their s.e.x--who possess over mankind a mesmeric influence, almost akin to witchcraft.
Without themselves feeling deeply, perhaps for the very reason that they do _not_, they are capable of exercising a magic sway over those with whom they come in contact; and while they attract more admirers than they know what to do with, are seldom very fortunate in their selection, or happy in their eventual lot. Miss Bruce was one of these witches, far more mischievous than the old conventional hags we used to burn under the sapient government of our first Stuart, and she knew a deal better than any old woman who ever mounted a broom-stick the credulity of her victims, the dangerous power of her spells. These she had lately been using freely. It was time to turn their exercise to good account.
"Mr. Stanmore _would_, in a moment," thought Maud, "if I only gave him the slightest hint. And I like him. Yes, I like him very much indeed.
Poor d.i.c.k! What a fool one can make a man look, to be sure, when he"s in love, as people call it! Aunt Agatha wouldn"t much fancy it, I suppose; not that I should care two pins about that. And d.i.c.k"s very easy to manage--too easy, I think. He seems as if I couldn"t make him angry. I made him _sorry_, though, the other day, poor fellow! but that"s not half such fun. Now Lord Bearwarden _has_ got a temper, I"m sure. I wonder, if we were to quarrel, which would give in first. I don"t think I should. I declare it would be rather nice to try. He"s good-looking--that"s to say, good-looking for a _man_. It"s an ugly animal at best. And they tell me the Den is such a pretty place in the autumn! And twenty thousand a year! I don"t care so much about the money part of it. Of course one must have money; but Selina St. Croix a.s.sured me that they called him The Impenetrable; and there wasn"t a girl in London he ever danced with twice. _Wasn"t_ there? He danced with me three times in two hours; but I didn"t say so. I suppose people _would_ open their eyes. I"ve a great mind--a _very_ great mind. But then, there"s d.i.c.k. He"d be horribly bored, poor fellow! And the worst of it is, he wouldn"t _say_ anything; but I know exactly how he"d look, and I should feel I was a least! What a bother it all is!
But something must be done. I can"t go on with this sort of life; I can"t stand Aunt Agatha much longer. There she goes, calling on the stairs again! Why can"t she send my maid up, if she wants me?"
But Miss Bruce ran down willingly enough when her aunt informed her, from the first floor, that she must make haste, and d.i.c.k was in the large drawing-room.
She found mother and son, as they called themselves, buried in a litter of cards, envelopes, papers of every description referring to "Peerage," "Court Guide," visiting-list--all such aids to memory--the charts, as it were, of that voyage which begins in the middle of April, and ends with the last week in July. As usual on great undertakings, from the opening of a campaign to the issuing of invitations for a ball, too much had been left to the last moment; there was a great deal to do, and little time to do it.
"We can"t get on without _you_, Miss Bruce," said d.i.c.k, with rising colour and averted eyes, that denoted how much less efficient an auxiliary he would prove since she had come into the room. "My mother has mislaid the old visiting-list, and the new one only goes down to T: so that the U"s, and the V"s, and W"s will be all left out. Think how we shall be hated in London next week! To be sure it"s what my mother calls "small and early" like young potatoes, and I hear there are three hundred cards sent out already."
"You"ll only hinder us, Mr. Stanmore," said Maud. "Hadn"t you better go away again?" but observing d.i.c.k"s face fall, the smiling eyes added, plainly as words could speak, "if you _can_!" She looked pale though, and unhappy, he thought. Of course he felt fonder of her than ever.
"Hinder you!" he repeated. "Why, I"m the mainstay of the whole performance. Don"t I bring you eight-and-twenty dancing men? all at once if you wish it, in a body, like soldiers."
"Nonsense, my dear," interrupted Aunt Agatha. "The staircase will be crowded enough as it is."
Maud laughed.
"But are they _real_ dancing men?" she asked, "not "dummies,"
"duffers,"--what do you call them? people who only stand against the wall and look idiotic. They"re no use unless they work regularly through, as if it was a match or a boat-race. I don"t call it dancing to hover about, and be always wanting to go down to tea or supper, and to haunt one and look cross if one behaves with common propriety--like some people I know."
d.i.c.k accepted the imputation.
"_I"m_ not a dancing man," said he, "though my eight-and-twenty friends are. I cannot see the pleasure of being hustled about in a hot room with a girl I never saw before in my life, and never want to see again,--who is looking beyond me all the time, watching the door for another fellow who never comes."
"Then why on earth do you go?" asked Miss Bruce simply.
"_You_ know why," he answered in a low voice, without raising his eyes to her face.
"O! I dare say," replied Maud; but though it was couched in a tone of banter, the smile that accompanied this pertinent remark seemed to afford d.i.c.k unbounded satisfaction.
Mrs. Stanmore looked up from her writing-table.
"I can"t get on while you two are jabbering in that corner." (She had not heard a word either of them said.) "I"ll take my visiting-list up-stairs. You can put these cards in envelopes and direct them. It will help me a little, but you"re neither of you much use."
She gathered her materials together, and was leaving the room. d.i.c.k"s heart began beating to some purpose; but his step-mother stopped at the door and addressed her niece.
"By the bye, Maud, I"d almost forgotten. I"m going to Rose and Brilliant"s. Fetch me your diamonds, and I"ll take them to be cleaned.
I can see the people myself, you know, and make sure of your having them back in time for the ball."
The girl turned white. d.i.c.k saw it, though his mother did not. He observed, too, that she gasped as if she was trying to form words which would not come.
"I am not going to wear them." She got it out at last with difficulty.
"Not wear them! nonsense!" was the reply. "Bring them down, my dear, at any rate, and let me look them over. If you don"t want it, you might lend me the collar--it would go very well with my mauve satin."
Maud"s eyes turned here and there as if to look for help, and it was d.i.c.k"s nature to throw himself in the gap.
"I"ll take them, mother," said he. "My phaeton"s at the door now.
You"ve plenty to do, and it will save you a long drive. Besides, I can blow the people up more effectually than a lady."
"I"m not so sure of that," answered Mrs. Stanmore. "However, it"s a sensible plan enough. Maud can fetch them down for you, and you may come back to dinner if you"re disengaged."
So speaking, Mrs. Stanmore sailed off, leaving the young people alone.
Maud thanked him with such a look as would have repaid d.i.c.k for a far longer expedition than from Belgravia to Bond Street.
"What should I do without you, Mr. Stanmore?" she said. "You always come to the rescue just when I want you most."
He coloured with delight.
"I like doing things for _you_," said he simply; "but I don"t know that taking a parcel a mile and a half is such a favour after all. If you"ll bring it, I"ll start directly you give the word."
Miss Bruce had been very pale hitherto, now a burning blush swept over her face to the temples.
"I--I can"t bring you my diamonds," said she, "for the first of those thirty reasons that prevented Napoleon"s general from bringing up his guns--I haven"t got them: they"re at Rose and Brilliant"s already."
"Maud!" he exclaimed, unconsciously using her Christian name--a liberty with which she seemed in nowise offended.
"You may well say "Maud"!" she murmured in a soft, low voice. "If you knew all, you"d never call me Maud. I don"t believe you"d ever speak to me again." "Then I"d rather not know all," he replied. "Though it would have to be something very bad indeed if it could make me think ill of you! Don"t tell me anything, Miss Bruce, except that you would like your diamonds back again."