"Ask him down here then."
"Ask him here? I"m not going to ask people to stay here."
"I think that"s rather absurd." Mina had needed to summon up courage for this remark.
"And he says---- There, look at this letter. He says he"s seen Harry and hopes to be able to do something for him. What does he mean by that?"
She came back toward Mina. "There must be something possible if he says that."
"He can"t mean anything about--about Blent. He means----"
"I must find out what he means. I must see him. The letter came when I was just desperate. Father and I sitting down here together day after day! As if----! As if----!" She paused and struggled for self-control.
"There, I"m going to be quite calm and reasonable about it," she ended.
Mina had her doubts about that--and would have been sorry not to have them. The interest that had threatened to vanish from her life with Addie Tristram"s death and Harry"s departure was revived. She sat looking at the agitated girl in a pleasant suspense. Cecily took up Southend"s letter again and smoothed it thoughtfully. "What should you think Harry must feel about me?" she asked, with a nearer approach to the calm which she had promised; but it seemed the quiet of despair.
Here Mina had her theory ready and advanced it with confidence.
"I expect he hates you. You see he did what he did in a moment of excitement: he must have been wrought up by something--something quite unusual with him. You brought it about somehow."
"Yes, I know I did. Do you suppose I haven"t thought about that?"
"There"s sure to have been a reaction," pursued the sage Imp. "He"ll have got back to his ordinary state of mind, and in that he loved Blent above everything. And the more he loves Blent, and the sorrier he is for having given it up, the less he"ll like you, of course."
"You think he"s sorry?"
"When I"ve done anything on an impulse like that, I"m always sorry."
Mina spoke from a tolerably large experience of impulses and their results; a very recent example had been the impulse of temper which made her drop hints to the Major about Harry"s right to be Tristram of Blent.
"Yes, then he would hate me," Cecily concluded. "And how she"d hate me!"
she cried the next instant, pointing at Addie Tristram"s picture.
About that at least there was no doubt in Mina"s mind. She nodded emphatically.
"I"ve done what she spent her life trying to prevent! I"ve made everybody talk about her again! Mina, I feel as if I"d thrown mud at her, as if I"d reviled her. And she can"t know how I would have loved her!"
"I remember her when she thought her husband was dead, and that she could be married all right to Captain Fitzhubert, and--and that it would be all right, you know."
"What did she say?" Cecily"s eyes were on the picture.
"She cried out--"Think of the difference it makes--the enormous difference!" I didn"t know what she meant then, but I remember how she looked and how she spoke."
"And in the end there is--no difference! Yes, she"d hate me. And so must Harry." She turned to Mina. "It"s terribly unfair, isn"t it, terribly?
She"d have liked me, I think, and I"d got to be such good friends with him. I"d come to think he"d ask us down now and then--about once a year perhaps. It would have been something to look forward to all the year.
It would have made life quite different, quite good enough, you know. I should have been so content and so happy with that. Oh, it"s terribly unfair! Why do people do things that--that bring about things like this?"
"Poor Lady Tristram," sighed Mina, glancing at the beautiful cause of the terrible unfairness. "She was like that, you see," she added.
"Yes, I know that. But it oughtn"t to count against other people so.
Yes, it"s terribly unfair."
These criticisms on the order of the world, whether well-founded or not (to Mina they seemed to possess much plausibility), did not advance matters. A silence fell between the two, and Cecily walked again to the window. The sun was setting on Blent, and it glowed in a soft beauty.
"To think that I should be here, and have this, and yet be very very unhappy!" murmured the girl softly. She faced round suddenly. "Mina, I"m going to London. Now--to-night. There"s a train at eight."
The Imp sat up straight and stared.
"I shall wire to our house; the maid"s there, and she"ll have things ready."
"What are you going to town for?"
"To see this Lord Southend. You must come with me."
"I? Oh, I can"t possibly. And your father----?"
"He must stay here. You must come. Run back and pack a bag; you won"t want much. I shall go just as I am." With a gesture she indicated the plain black frock she wore. "Oh, I can"t be bothered with packing! What does that matter? I"ll call for you in the carriage at seven. We mustn"t miss the train."
Mina gasped. This was Tristram indeed; the wild resolve was announced in tones calmer than any that Cecily had achieved during the interview.
Mina began to think that all the family must have this way of being peculiar in ordinary things, but quite at home when there was an opportunity of doing anything unusual.
"I just feel I must go. If anything"s done at all, it"ll be done in London, not here."
"How long do you mean to stay?"
"I can"t possibly tell. Till something"s done. Go now, Mina, or you"ll be late."
"Oh, I"m not coming. The whole thing"s absurd. What can you do? And, anyhow, it"s not my business."
"Very well. I shall go alone. Only I thought you were interested in Harry and--and I thought you were my friend." She threw herself into a chair; she was in Addie Tristram"s att.i.tude. "But I suppose I haven"t got any friends," she concluded, not in a distressed fashion, but with a pensive submissive little smile.
"You"re perfectly adorable," cried Mina, running across to her. "And I"ll go with you to Jericho, if you like." She caught Cecily"s hands in hers and kissed her cheek.
The scene was transformed in an instant; that also was the Tristram way.
Cecily sprang up laughing gayly, even dancing a step or two, as she wrung Mina"s hands.
"Hurrah! _Marchons! En Avant!_" she cried. "Oh, we"ll do something, Mina! Don"t you hate sitting still?"
"Cecily, are you--are you in love with Harry?"
"Oh, I hope not, I hope not," she laughed softly. "Because he must hate me so. And are you, Mina? Oh, I hope not that too! Come, to London! To seek our fortunes in London! Oh, you tiresome old Blent, how glad I am to leave you!"
"But your father----"
"We"ll do things quite nicely, Mina dear. We won"t distress father.
We"ll leave a note for him. Mina, I"m sure Addie Tristram used just to leave a note whenever she ran away! We"ll sleep in London to-night!"
Suddenly Mina understood better why Harry had surrendered Blent, and understood too, as her mind flew back, why Addie Tristram had made men do what they had done. She was carried away by this sudden flood of enraptured resolution, of a resolve that seemed like an inspiration, of delight in the unreasonable, of gay defiance to the limits of the possible.
"Oh, yes, you tiresome old Blent!" cried Cecily, shaking her fair hair toward the open window. "How could a girl think she was going to live on river scenes and bric-a-brac?" She laughed in airy scorn. "You must grow more amusing if I"m to come back to you!" she threatened.