Part 14 (1/2)
”You said your heart was breaking: who is it for?” asked Sepia, almost imperiously, and raising her voice a little.
”Sepia!” cried Hesper, in bewilderment.
”Why should your heart be breaking, except you loved somebody?”
”Because I hate _him_,” answered Hesper.
”Pooh! is that all?” returned Miss Yolland. ”If there were anybody you wanted--then I grant!”
”Sepia!” said Hesper, almost entreatingly, ”I can not bear to be teased to-day. Do be open with me. You always puzzle me so! I don't understand you a bit better than the first day you came to us. I have got used to you--that is all. Tell me--are you my friend, or are you in league with mamma? I have my doubts. I can't help it, Sepia.”
She looked in her face pitifully. Miss Yolland looked at her calmly, as if waiting for her to finish.
”I thought you would--not help me,” Hesper went on, ”--that no one can except G.o.d--he could strike me dead; but I did think you would feel for me a little. I hate Mr. Redmain, and I loathe myself. If _you_ laugh at me, I shall take poison.”
”I wouldn't do that,” returned Miss Yolland, quite gravely, and as if she had already contemplated the alternative; ”--that is, not so long as there was a turn of the game left.”
”The game!” echoed Hesper. ”--Playing for love with the devil!--I wish the game were yours, as you call it!”
”Mine I'd make it, if I had it to play,” returned Sepia. ”I wish I were the other player instead of you, but the man hates me. Some men do.--Come,” she went on, ”I will be open with you, Hesper; you don't hang for thoughts in England. I will tell you what I would do with a man I hated--that is, if I was compelled to marry him; it would hardly be fair otherwise, and I have a weakness for fair play.--I would give him absolute fair play.”
The last three words she spoke with a strange expression of mingled scorn and jest, then paused, and seemed to have said all she meant to say.
”Go on,” sighed Hesper; ”you amuse me.” Her tone expressed anything but amus.e.m.e.nt. ”What would a woman of your experience do in my place?”
Sepia fixed a momentary look on Hesper; the words seemed to have stung her. She knew well enough that, if Lady Malice came to know anything of her real history, she would have bare time to pack up her small belongings. She wanted Hesper married, that she might go with her into the world again; at the same time, she feared her marriage with Mr.
Redmain would hardly favor her wishes. But she could not with prudence do anything expressly to prevent it; while she might even please Mr.
Redmain a little, if she were supposed to have used influence on his side. That, however, must not seem to Hesper. Sepia did not yet know in fact upon what ground she had to build.
For some time she had been trying to get nearer to Hesper, but--much like Hesper's experience with her--had found herself strangely baffled, she could not tell how--the barrier being simply the half innocence, half ignorance, of Hesper. When minds are not the same, words do not convey between them.
She gave a ringing laugh, throwing back her head, and showing all her fine teeth.
”You want to know what I would do with a man I hated, as you _say_ you hate Mr. Redmain?--I would send for him at once--not wait for him to come to me--and entreat him, _as he loved me_, to deliver me from the dire necessity of obeying my father. If he were a gentleman, as I hope he may be, he would manage to get me out of it somehow, and wouldn't compromise me a hair's breadth. But, that is, _if I were you_. If I were _myself_ in your circ.u.mstances, and hated him as you do, that would not serve my turn. I would ask him all the same to set me free, but I would behave myself so that he could not do it. While I begged him, I mean, I should make him feel that he could not--should make him absolutely determined to marry me, at any price to him, and at whatever cost to me. He should say to himself that I did not mean what I said--as, indeed, for the sake of my revenge, I should not. For that I would give anything--supposing always, don't you know? that I hated him as you do Mr. Redmain. He should declare to me it was impossible; that he would die rather than give up the most precious desire of his life--and all that rot, you know. I would tell him I hated him--only so that he should not believe me. I would say to him, 'Release me, Mr.
Redmain, or I will make you repent it. I have given you fair warning. I have told you I hated you.' He should persist, should marry me, and then I _would_.”
”Would what?”
”Do as I said.”
”But what?”
”Make him repent it.”
With the words, Miss Yolland broke into a second fit of laughter, and, turning from Hesper, went, with a kind of loitering, strolling pace toward the door, glancing round more than once, each time with a fresh bubble rather than ripple in her laughter. Whether it was all nonsensical merriment, or whether the author of laughter without fun, Beelzebub himself, was at the moment stirring in her, Hesper could not have told; as it was, she sat staring after her, unable even to think.
Just as she reached the door, however, she turned quickly, and, with the smile of a hearty, innocent child, or something very like it, ran back to Hesper, threw her arms round her, and said:
”There, now! I've done for you what I could: I have made you forget the odious man for a moment. I was curious to know whether I could not make a bride forget her bridegroom. The other thing is too easy.”