Part 26 (1/2)

”And yet they know it can be left to any one else.”

”To you, for instance.”

”That would hardly alter your position, except that you would be then, not heir, but master,” she says, smiling sweetly at him. ”No, I was supposing myself also disinherited. This cousin that is coming,--Eleanor Ma.s.sereene,--she, too, is his grandchild.”

As a rule, when speaking of those we hate, quite as much as when speaking of those we love, we use the p.r.o.noun alone. Mr. Amherst is ”he” always to his relatives.

”What! Can you believe it possible a little uneducated country girl, with probably a snub nose, thick boots, and no manners to speak of, can cut you out? Marcia, you grow modest. Why, even I, a man, can see her in my mind's eye, with a freckled complexion (he hates freckles), and a frightened gasp between each word, and a wholesome horror of wine, and a general air of hoping the earth will open presently to swallow her up.”

”But how if she is totally different from all this?”

”She won't be different. Her father was a wild Irishman. Besides, I have seen her sort over and over again, and it is positive cruelty to animals to drag the poor creatures from their dull homes into the very centre of life and gayety. They never can make up their minds whether the butler that announces dinner is or is not the latest arrival; and they invariably say, 'No, thank you,' when asked to have anything. To them the fish-knife is a thing unknown and afternoon tea the wildest dissipation.”

”Well, I can only hope and trust she will turn out just what you say,”

says Marcia, laughing.

Four days later, meeting her on his way to the stables, he throws her a letter from his solicitor.

”It is all right,” he says, and goes on a step or two, as though hurried, while she hastily runs her eyes over it.

”Well, and now your mind is at rest,” she calls after him, as she sees the distance widening between them.

”For the present, yes.”

”Well, here, take your letter.”

”Tear it up; I don't want it,” he returns, and disappears round the angle of the house.

Her fingers form themselves as though about to obey him and tear the note in two. Then she pauses.

”He may want it,” she says to herself, hesitating. ”Business letters are sometimes useful afterward. I will keep it for him.”

She slips it into her pocket, and for the time being thinks no more of it. That night, as she undresses, finding it again, she throws it carelessly into a drawer, where it lies for many days forgotten.

It is the twentieth of August: in seven days more the ”little country girl with freckles and a snub nose” will be at Herst Royal, longing ”for the earth to open and swallow her up.”

To Philip her coming is a matter of the most perfect indifference. To Marcia it is an event,--and an unpleasant one.

When, some three years previously, Marcia Amherst consented to leave the mother she so sincerely loved to tend an old and odious man, she did so at his request and with her mother's full sanction, through desire of the gold that was to be (it was tacitly understood) the reward of her devotion. There was, however, another condition imposed upon her before she might come to Herst and take up permanent quarters there. This was the entire forsaking of her mother, her people, and the land of her birth.

To this also there was open agreement made: which agreement was in private broken. She was quite clever enough to manage a clandestine correspondence without fear of discovery; but letters, however frequent, hardly make up for enforced absence from those we love, and Marcia's affection for her Italian mother was the one pure sentiment in her rather scheming disposition. Yet the love of riches, that is innate in all, was sufficiently strong in her to bear her through with her task.

But now the fear that this new-comer, this interloper, may, after all her detested labor, by some fell chance become a recipient of the spoil (no matter in how small a degree), causes her trouble.

Of late, too, she has not been happy. Philip's coldness has been on the increase. He himself, perhaps, is hardly aware of the change. But what woman loving but feels the want of love? And at times her heart is racked with pa.s.sionate grief.

Now, as she and her lip-love stand side by side in the oriel window that overlooks the graveled path leading into the gardens, the dislike to her cousin's coming burns hotly within her.

Outside, in his bath chair, wheeled up and down by a long-suffering attendant, goes Mr. Amherst, in happy ignorance of the four eyes that watch his coming and going with such distaste.

Up and down, up and down he goes, his weakly head bent upon his chest, his fierce eyes roving restlessly to and fro. He is still invalid enough to prefer the chair to the more treacherous aid of his stick.