Evadne sighed: "Mother, I will do anything you suggest except the one thing. I will not live with Major Colquhoun as his wife," she said.
"I thought so!" Mrs. Frayling exclaimed. "You will do everything but what you ought to do. It is just what your father says. Once you over-educate a girl, you can do nothing with her, she gives herself such airs; and you have managed to over-educate yourself somehow, although _how_ remains a mystery. But one thing I am determined upon. Your poor sisters shall never have a book I don"t know off by heart myself. I shall lock them all up. Not that it is much use, for no one will marry them now. No man will ever come to the house again to be robbed of his character, as Major Colquhoun has been by you. I am sure no one ever knew anything bad about him--at least _I_ never did, whatever your father may have done--until you went and ferreted all those dreadful stories out. You are shameless, Evadne, you really are. And what good have you done by it all, I should like to know? When you might have done so much, too."
Mrs. Frayling paused here, and Evadne looked up at the cathedral again, feeling for her pitifully. This new view of her mother was another terrible disillusion, and the more the poor lady exposed herself, the greater Evadne felt was the claim she had upon her filial tenderness.
"Why don"t you say something?" Mrs. Frayling recommenced.
"Mother, what _can_ I say?"
"If you knew what a time I have had with your father and your husband, you would pity me. I can a.s.sure you George has been so sullen there was no doing anything with him, and the trouble I have had, and the excuses I have made for you, I am quite worn out. He said if you were that kind of girl yon might go, and I"ve had to go down on my knees to him almost to make him forgive you. And now I will go down on my knees to you"--she exclaimed, acting on a veritable inspiration, and suiting the action to the word--"to beg you for the sake of your sisters, and for the love of G.o.d, not to disgrace us all!"
"Oh, mother--no! Don"t do that. Get up--do get up! This is too dreadful!"
Evadne cried, almost hysterically.
"Here I shall kneel until you give in," Mrs. Frayling sobbed, clasping her hands in the att.i.tude of prayer to her daughter, and conscious of the strength of her position.
Evadne tried in vain to raise her. Her bonnet had slipped to one side, her dress had been caught up by the heels of her boots, and the soles were showing behind; her mantle was disarranged; she was a figure for a farce; but Evadne saw only her own mother, shaken with sobs, on her knees before her.
"Mother--mother," she cried, sinking into a chair, and covering her face with her hands to hide the dreadful spectacle: "Tell me what I am to do!
Suggest something!"
"If you would even consent," Mrs. Frayling began, gathering herself up slowly, and standing over her daughter; "if you would even consent to live in the same house with him until you get used to him and forget all this nonsense, I am sure he would agree. For he is _dreadfully_ afraid of scandal, Evadne. I never knew a man more so. In fact, he shows nothing but right and proper feeling, and you will love him as much as ever again when you know him better, and get over all these exaggerated ideas. _Do_ consent to this, dear child, for my sake. You shall have your own way in everything else. And I will arrange it all for you, and get his written promise to allow you to live in his house quite independently, like brother and sister, as long as you like, and there will be no awkwardness for you whatever. Do, my child, do consent to this," and the poor old lady knelt once more, and put her arms about her daughter, and wept aloud.
Evadne broke down. The sight of the dear face so distorted, the poor lips quivering, the kind eyes all swollen and blurred with tears was too much for her, and she flung her arms round her mother"s neck and cried: "I consent, mother, for your sake--to keep up appearances; but only that, mother, you promise me. You will arrange all that?"
"I promise you, my dear, I promise," Mrs. Frayling rejoined, rising with alacrity, her countenance clearing on the instant, her heart swelling with the joy and pride of a great victory. She knew she had done what the whole bench of bishops could not have done--nor that most remarkable man, her husband, either, for the matter of that, and she enjoyed her triumph.
As she had antic.i.p.ated, Major Colquhoun made no difficulty about the arrangement.
"I should not care a rap for an unwilling wife," he said. "Let her go _her_ way, and I"ll go mine. All I want now is to keep up appearances. It would be a deuced nasty thing for me if the story got about. Fellows would think there was more in it than there is."
"But she will come round," said Mrs. Frayling. "If only you are nice to her, and I am sure you will be, she is sure to come round."
"Oh, of course she will," Mr. Frayling decided.
And Major Colquhoun smiled complacently. He often a.s.serted that there was no knowing women; but he took credit to himself for a superior knowledge of the s.e.x all the same.
CHAPTER XVII.
Before writing the promise which Evadne required, Major Colquhoun begged to be allowed to have an interview with her, and to this also she consented at her mother"s earnest solicitation, although the idea of it went very much against the grain. She perceived, however, that the first meeting must be awkward in any case, and she was one of those energetic people who, when there is a disagreeable thing to be done, do it, and get it over at once. So she strengthened her mind by adding a touch of severity to her costume, and sat herself down in the drawing room with a book on her lap when the morning came, well nerved for the interview. Her heart began to beat unpleasantly when he rang, and she heard him in the hall, doubtless inquiring for her. At the sound of his voice she arose from her seat involuntarily, and stood, literally awaiting in fear and trembling the dreadful moment of meeting.
"What a horrible sensation!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed mentally.
"Colonel Colquhoun," the servant announced.
He entered with an air of displeasure he could not conceal, and bowed to her from a distance stiffly; but, although she looked hard at him, she could not see him, so great was her trepidation. It was she, however, who was the first to speak.
"I--I"m nervous," she gasped, clasping her hands and holding them out to him piteously.
Colonel Colquhoun relaxed. It flattered his vanity to perceive that this curiously well-informed and exceedingly strong-minded young lady became as weakly emotional as any ordinary school girl the moment she found herself face to face with him. "There is nothing to be afraid of," he blandly a.s.sured her.
"Will you--sit down," Evadne managed to mumble, dropping into her own chair again from sheer inability to stand any longer.
Colonel Colquhoun took a seat at an exaggerated distance from her. His idea was to impress her with a sense of his extreme delicacy, but the act had a contrary effect upon her. His manners had been perfect so far as she had hitherto seen them, but thus to emphasize an already sufficiently awkward position was not good taste, and she registered the fact against him.
After they were seated, there was a painful pause. Evadne knit her brows and cast about in her mind for something to say. Suddenly the fact that the maid had announced him as "Colonel" Colquhoun recurred to her.
"Have you been promoted?" she asked very naturally.
"Yes," he answered.
"I congratulate you," she faltered.
Again he bowed stiffly.
But Evadne was recovering herself. She could look at him now, and it surprised her to find that he was not in appearance the monster she had been picturing him--no more a monster, indeed, than he had seemed before she knew of his past. Until now, however, except for that one glimpse in the carriage, she had always seen him through such a haze of feeling as to make the seeing practically null and void, so far as any perception of his true character might be gathered from his appearance, and useless for anything really but ordinary purposes of identification. Now, however, that the misty veil of pa.s.sion was withdrawn from her eyes, the man whom she had thought n.o.ble she saw to be merely big; the face which had seemed to beam with intellect certainly remained fine-featured still, but it was like the work of a talented artist when it lacks the perfectly perceptible, indefinable finishing touch of genius that would have raised it above criticism, and drawn you back to it again, but, wanting which, after the first glance of admiration, interest fails, and you pa.s.s on only convinced of a certain cleverness, a thing that soon satiates without satisfying. Evadne had seen soul in her lover"s eyes, but now they struck her as hard, shallow, glittering, and obtrusively blue; and she noticed that his forehead, although high, shelved back abruptly to the crown of his head, which dipped down again sheer to the back of his neck, a very precipice without a single boss upon which to rest a hope of some saving grace in the way of eminent social qualities. "Thank Heaven, I see you as you are in time!" thought Evadne.
Colonel Colquhoun was the next to speak.
"I shall be able to give you rather a better position now," he said.
"Yes," she replied, but she did not at all appreciate the advantage, because she had never known what it was to be in an inferior position.
"May I speak to you with reference to our future relations?" he continued.
She bowed a kind of cold a.s.sent, then looked at him expectantly, her eyes opening wide, and her heart thumping horribly in the very natural perturbation which again seized upon her as they approached the subject; yet, in spite of her quite perceptible agitation, there was both dignity and determination in her att.i.tude, and Colonel Colquhoun, meeting the unflinching glance direct, became suddenly aware of the fact that the timid little love-sick girl with half-shut, sleepy eyes he had had such a fancy for, and this young lady, modestly shrinking in every inch of her sensitive frame, but undaunted in spirit, nevertheless, were two very different people. There had been misapprehension of character on both sides, it seemed, but he liked pluck, and, by Jove! the girl was handsomer than he had imagined. Views or no views, he would lay siege to her senses in earnest; there would be some satisfaction in such a conquest.
"Is there no hope for me, Evadne?" he pleaded.
"None--none," she burst out impetuously, becoming desperate in her embarra.s.sment, "But I cannot discuss the subject. I beg you will let it drop."
Her one idea was to get rid of this big blond man, who gazed at her with an expression in his eyes from which, now that her own pa.s.sion was dead, she shrunk in revolt.
Again Colonel Colquhoun bowed stiffly. "As you please," he said. "My only wish is to please you." He paused for a reply, but as Evadne had nothing more to say, he was obliged to recommence: "The regiment," he said, "is going to Malta at once, and I must go with it. And what I would venture to suggest is, that you should follow when you feel inclined, by P. and O.
Fellows will understand that I don"t care to have you come out on a troopship. And I should like to get your rooms fitted up for you, too, before you arrive. I am anxious to do all in my power to meet your wishes.
I will make every arrangement with that end in view; and if you can suggest anything yourself that does not occur to me I shall be glad. You had better bring an English maid out with you, or a German. Frenchwomen are flighty." He got up as he said this, and added: "You"ll like Malta, I think. It is a bright little place, and very jolly in the season."
Evadne rose too. "Thank you," she said. "You are showing me more consideration than I have any right to expect, and I am sure to be satisfied with any arrangement you may think it right to make."
"I will telegraph to you when my arrangements for your reception are complete," he concluded. "And I think that is all."
"I can think of nothing else," she answered.
"Good-bye, then," he said.