"I should scarcely call Susie common," said Celia, with a smile. "I like her very much."
"Do you? How quaint! This fire is very jolly. Do you always have one here?" asked her ladyship, as if her volatile mind had forgotten the last subject of the conversation.
Celia told her that the fire was lit every evening, and Lady Heyton, rising with a yawn, remarked that she should often drop in for a warm; the rest of the house seemed to her chilly. Celia gave the required invitation, and Lady Heyton stood looking about her vacantly, and as if she were waiting for the volition to go.
"I say; do tell me your name?" she said, languidly.
Celia told her.
"Awfully pretty name. Mine"s Miriam; ridiculously unsuitable, don"t you think? So hard and cold; and I"m anything but that. Pity one can"t choose one"s own name! Do you mind if I call you "Celia"? "Miss Grant"
is so stiff."
"Oh, not at all," said Celia.
"Thanks very much. What"s that?" she asked, starting, her hand going to her bosom, her brows coming together nervously.
The sound of voices, not in actual altercation, but something very near it, came from the hall.
"It"s the Marquess and Percy," said Miriam, in a low and frightened voice. "Oh, I do hope they"re not quarrelling. I warned Percy. Hush!
Listen!"
She stole to the door and opened it slightly, and Celia heard the Marquess say:
"I have promised. The money shall be paid; but I warn you, Percy, there must be an end to this wicked and foolish extravagance. I say there must be an end to it. I do not want to threaten you, but----"
"Threaten!" came the younger man"s voice, which was almost insolent and rather thick, as if he had been drinking too much wine. "No, I don"t suppose you do. After all, I"ve got to live. I"m your son----"
"Do not hesitate," said the Marquess. "You would add, my heir. I do not forget it. But do not count too much on the fact. I say to you, do not count too much on it. Percy!" His tone changed to a pleading one. "For Heaven"s sake, take heed to what I say. Do not try me too much. There are reasons----"
His voice broke and ceased; with a glance at Celia and a shrug, Lady Heyton opened the door widely, and went into the hall.
"I have been making the acquaintance of Miss Grant," Celia heard her say, with an affectation of casualness. "Are you two going into the smoking-room; may I come with you? I shall feel so lonely in that big, solemn drawing-room."
"Miss Grant in there?" said Lord Heyton, with a nod towards the library.
"I should like to make her acquaintance, too."
He took a step towards the door; but Celia closed it and went quickly into the room beyond; and soon afterwards, when the coast was clear, went up to her own room.
CHAPTER XVI
Not only on her own account, but on that of the Marquess, Celia regretted keenly the advent of Lord and Lady Heyton at the Hall. Of the man, Celia had formed a most unfavourable opinion, and she could not but see that his wife, beautiful as she was, was shallow, vain, and unreliable, the kind of woman who would always act on impulse, whether it were a good or evil one. Such a woman is more dangerous than a deliberately wicked and absolutely heartless one.
The coming of these two persons had broken up the quiet and serenity of the great house; she felt sorry for the Marquess, who had been forced almost into an open quarrel with his son on this first night; and she felt sorry for herself; for she had taken an instinctive dislike to Lord Heyton, and knew that she would have hard work to avoid him. There are men whose look, when it is bent upon a woman, is an insult; the touch of whose hand is a contamination; and Celia felt that Lord Heyton was one of these men. She shut herself up in the library the next morning, and though she heard him in the hall, and was afflicted by the pungent cigarette, which was rarely out of his lips, he did not intrude on her; but as she was pa.s.sing through the hall, on her way for a walk, she met him coming out of the smoking-room. His was a well-groomed figure, and save for the weak and sensuous lips, and the prominent eyes with the curious expression, he was, physically, by no means a bad specimen of a young man; but Celia was acutely conscious of the feeling of repulsion, and she quickened her pace. With his hands still in his pockets, he almost intercepted her.
"Good morning, Miss Grant!" he said, with the free-and-easy manner of a man addressing a dependent. "First-rate morning, isn"t it? Going for a walk?"
"Yes, my lord," replied Celia, giving him his t.i.tle with a little emphasis, and speaking coldly, with her eyes fixed on the ground, her hands touching Roddy, who had not offered to go to Lord Heyton, but gazed up at Celia as if he were saying, "I don"t like this man. Let us go for our walk and get away from him."
"Not a bad idea, a walk; tip-top morning," said Heyton. "I"ll come with you, if you"ll allow me."
Celia bit her lip, and flushed angrily; for the request for permission was so evidently a mere matter of form.
"I would rather go alone, my lord," she said. "I am going to call on a friend."
"Oh, but I can go as far as the door with you, surely," he said, with the smile of a man too self-satisfied to accept a woman"s rebuff seriously. "Two"s company and one"s none."
"But there are already two," said Celia, forcing a smile and glancing at Roddy. "It is very kind of your lordship, but I would rather be alone."
She moved on quickly, her heart beating rather fast with resentment, her face crimson. Heyton followed her to the door, and stood looking after her, an evil smile on his face.
"Pretty high and mighty for a typewriting girl," he muttered. "By jove!
she"s pretty. I like that swing of hers. All right, my girl; I"m not taken in by that mock shyness. You wait awhile. Yes; she"s deuced pretty. I wonder how the old man picked her up!"
Celia had gone some distance before she recovered her equanimity.
Certainly, this son of the Marquess was a hateful creature, and she could not help wondering how even so shallow and frivolous a woman as his wife could have married him. She had reached the bend of the road, when she stopped short and stared with amazement at a group which presented itself a little farther down.
On the bank adjoining the pathway was seated Lady Gridborough; her hat was on one side, her face was flushed, her mantle dusty and disarranged; but her good-natured face was wreathed in smiles as she watched a young man, standing beside the Exmoor pony and attempting to keep it from rearing and plunging.
"Oh, whatever is the matter?" demanded Celia, as she ran forward.
Lady Gridborough looked up, laughed, and wiped her eyes.
"Good morning, my dear," she said; "you"ve come just in time to enjoy a little comedy." She nodded at the young man and the frisking pony. "Turk took it into his head to bolt just now, coming down the hill there. I suppose it was only his fun, but we ran up on to the path, the cart overturned----"
"Oh! Are you hurt?" demanded Celia, anxiously.
"Not a bit," replied Lady Gridborough; "but I might have been, for I was mixed up with the cart in some extraordinary fashion. I don"t know what might have happened if it hadn"t been for that young man there. He appeared on the scene as if he had dropped from the clouds; he disentangled me somehow, set the cart up again, and is now trying to persuade that fool of a pony that this isn"t a circus."
At the sound of Celia"s voice, the young man had turned his head and uttered an exclamation, and now that Celia saw his face, she, too, uttered a cry of astonishment; for she recognized Mr. Reginald Rex, the young man of the British Museum.
She sprang up and went to him with a hand extended; he grasped it, and they stared at each other for a moment in astonished silence; then Celia burst into laughter.
"Why, how ridiculous!" she said. "To think of meeting you here, and in this way!"
"It"s--incredible!" he retorted. "What are you doing here?"
"I may ask you the same question," said Celia.
"I"ll tell you directly," he replied, "as soon as I"ve persuaded this pony that we"ve finished the trick act."
"Celia!" called Lady Gridborough from the bank. "Come here at once. What does this mean? Do you know that young man? You greet each other as if you were life-long friends!"
"Well, we"re not quite that," said Celia, laughing. "We"ve met at the British Museum. He is a novelist."
For an instant Lady Gridborough looked slightly disappointed; but it was for an instant only.