"Ah;--that means that he will die." Then she sat herself down and almost unconsciously took off her bonnet and laid it aside. Lady Ushant, then looking into her face for the first time, was at a loss to understand what she had heard of her beauty. Could it be the same girl of whom Mrs. Hopkins had spoken and of whose brilliant beauty Reginald had repeated what he had heard? She was haggard, almost old, with black lines round her eyes. There was nothing soft or gracious in the tresses of her hair. When Lady Ushant had been young men had liked hair such as was that of Mary Masters. Arabella"s yellow locks,--whencesoever they might have come,--were rough and uncombed.
But it was the look of age, and the almost masculine strength of the lower face which astonished Lady Ushant the most. "Has he spoken to you about me?" she said.
"Not to me." Then Lady Ushant went on to explain that though she was there now as the female representative of the family she had never been so intimate with John Morton as to admit of such confidence as that suggested.
"I wonder whether he can love me," said the girl.
"a.s.suredly he does, Miss Trefoil. Why else should he send for you?"
"Because he is an honest man. I hardly think that he can love me much. He was to have been my husband, but he will escape that. If I thought that he would live I would tell him that he was free."
"He would not want to be--free."
"He ought to want it. I am not fit for him. I have come here, Lady Ushant, because I want to tell him the truth."
"But you love him?" Arabella made no answer, but sat looking steadily into Lady Ushant"s face. "Surely you do love him."
"I do not know. I don"t think I did love him,--though now I may. It is so horrible that he should die, and die while all this is going on. That softens one you know. Have you ever heard of Lord Rufford?"
"Lord Rufford;--the young man?"
"Yes;--the young man."
"Never particularly. I knew his father."
"But not this man? Mr. Morton never spoke to you of him."
"Not a word."
"I have been engaged to him since I became engaged to your nephew."
"Engaged to Lord Rufford,--to marry him?"
"Yes,--indeed."
"And will you marry him?"
"I cannot say. I tell you this, Lady Ushant, because I must tell somebody in this house. I have behaved very badly to Mr. Morton, and Lord Rufford is behaving as badly to me."
"Did John know of this?"
"No;--but I meant to tell him. I determined that I would tell him had he lived. When he sent for me I swore that I would tell him. If he is dying,--how can I say it?" Lady Ushant sat bewildered, thinking over it, understanding nothing of the world in which this girl had lived, and not knowing now how things could have been as she described them.
It was not as yet three months since, to her knowledge, this young woman had been staying at Bragton as the affianced bride of the owner of the house,--staying there with her own mother and his grandmother,--and now she declared that since that time she had become engaged to another man and that that other man had already jilted her! And yet she was here that she might make a deathbed parting with the man who regarded himself as her affianced husband.
"If I were sure that he were dying, why should I trouble him?" she said again.
Lady Ushant found herself utterly unable to give any counsel to such a condition of circ.u.mstances. Why should she be asked? This young woman had her mother with her. Did her mother know all this, and nevertheless bring her daughter to the house of a man who had been so treated! "I really do not know what to say," she replied at last.
"But I was determined that I would tell some one. I thought that Mrs.
Morton would have been here." Lady Ushant shook her head. "I am glad she is not, because she was not civil to me when I was here before.
She would have said hard things to me,--though not perhaps harder than I have deserved. I suppose I may still see him to-morrow."
"Oh yes; he expects it."
"I shall not tell him now. I could not tell him if I thought he were dying. If he gets better you must tell him all."
"I don"t think I could do that, Miss Trefoil."
"Pray do;--pray do. I call upon you to tell him everything."
"Tell him that you will be married to Lord Rufford?"
"No;--not that. If Mr. Morton were well to-morrow I would have him,--if he chose to take me after what I have told you."
"You do love him then?"
"At any rate I like no one better."
"Not the young lord?"
"No! why should I like him? He does not love me. I hate him. I would marry Mr. Morton to-morrow, and go with him to Patagonia, or anywhere else,--if he would have me after hearing what I have done." Then she rose from her chair; but before she left the room she said a word further. "Do not speak a word to my mother about this. Mamma knows nothing of my purpose. Mamma only wants me to marry Lord Rufford, and to throw Mr. Morton over. Do not tell anyone else, Lady Ushant; but if he is ever well enough then you must tell him." After that she went, leaving Lady Ushant in the room astounded by the story she had heard.
VOLUME III.
CHAPTER I.
"I HAVE TOLD HIM EVERYTHING."
That evening was very long and very sad to the three ladies a.s.sembled in the drawing-room at Bragton Park, but it was probably more so to Lady Augustus than the other two. She hardly spoke to either of them; nor did they to her; while a certain amount of conversation in a low tone was carried on between Lady Ushant and Miss Trefoil.
When Arabella came down to dinner she received a message from the sick man. He sent his love, and would so willingly have seen her instantly,--only that the doctor would not allow it. But he was so glad,--so very glad that she had come! This Lady Ushant said to her in a whisper, and seemed to say it as though she had heard nothing of that frightful story which had been told to her not much more than an hour ago. Arabella did not utter a word in reply, but put out her hand, secretly as it were, and grasped that of the old lady to whom she had told the tale of her later intrigues. The dinner did not keep them long, but it was very grievous to them all. Lady Ushant might have made some effort to be at least a complaisant hostess to Lady Augustus had she not heard this story,--had she not been told that the woman, knowing her daughter to be engaged to John Morton, had wanted her to marry Lord Rufford. The story having come from the lips of the girl herself had moved some pity in the old woman"s breast in regard to her; but for Lady Augustus she could feel nothing but horror.
In the evening Lady Augustus sat alone, not even pretending to open a book or to employ her fingers. She seated herself on one side of the fire with a screen in her hand, turning over such thoughts in her mind as were perhaps customary to her. Would there ever come a period to her misery, an hour of release in which she might be in comfort ere she died? Hitherto from one year to another, from one decade to the following, it had all been struggle and misery, contumely and contempt. She thought that she had done her duty by her child, and her child hated and despised her. It was but the other day that Arabella had openly declared that in the event of her marriage she would not have her mother as a guest in her own house. There could be no longer hope for triumph and glory;--but how might she find peace so that she might no longer be driven hither and thither by this ungrateful tyrant child? Oh, how hard she had worked in the world, and how little the world had given her in return!
Lady Ushant and Arabella sat at the other side of the fire, at some distance from it, on a sofa, and carried on a fitful conversation in whispers, of which a word would now and then reach the ears of the wretched mother. It consisted chiefly of a description of the man"s illness, and of the different sayings which had come from the doctors who had attended him. It was marvellous to Lady Augustus, as she sat there listening, that her daughter should condescend to take an interest in such details. What could it be to her now how the fever had taken him, or why or when? On the very next day, the very morning on which she would go and sit,--ah so uselessly,--by the dying man"s bedside, her father was to meet Lord Rufford at the ducal mansion in Piccadilly, to see if anything could be done in that quarter! It was impossible that she should really care whether John Morton"s lease of life was to be computed at a week"s purchase or at that of a month!
And yet Arabella sat there asking sick-room questions and listening to sick-room replies as though her very nature had been changed. Lady Augustus heard her daughter inquire what food the sick man took, and then Lady Ushant at great length gave the list of his nourishment.
What sickening hypocrisy! thought Lady Augustus.
Lady Augustus must have known her daughter well; and yet it was not hypocrisy. The girl"s nature, which had become thoroughly evil from the treatment it had received, was not altered. Such sudden changes do not occur more frequently than other miracles. But zealously as she had practised her arts she had not as yet practised them long enough not to be cowed by certain outward circ.u.mstances. There were moments when she still heard in her imagination the sound of that horse"s foot as it struck the skull of the unfortunate fallen rider;--and now the prospect of the death of this man whom she had known so intimately and who had behaved so well to her,--to whom her own conduct had been so foully false,--for a time brought her back to humanity. But Lady Augustus had got beyond that and could not at all understand it.
By nine they had all retired for the night. It was necessary that Lady Ushant should again visit her nephew, and the mother and daughter went to their own rooms. "I cannot in the least make out what you are doing," said Lady Augustus in her most severe voice.