Part 34 (1/2)

Lord Lossiemouth divined that each of the three believed him or herself to be the only one to tackle the subject.

How ghastly! What a cruelly good short story it would make for a magazine!

Then he read Lady Blore's letter. Apparently it was not pleasant reading. It seemed to p.r.i.c.k somewhat sharply. He winced once or twice, and spoke angrily to it.

”My good woman, as if I did not _know_ that! Men are always behaving heartlessly to women in their opinion. It is the normal male state. It is an established fact that we are all brutes. Why do you want me to marry your paragon if you have such a low opinion of me?”

Still he could not put the letter down.

”It is possible though improbable,” wrote that dauntless woman, ”that your vacillating and selfish character may have improved sufficiently in the course of years for you to have become aware that you have behaved disgracefully to a woman, who, if she had had any sense, ought never to have given you a second thought, who was and still is deeply attached to you; probably the only person on this earth who has the misfortune to care two pins about you.”

Lord Lossiemouth tried to feel sarcastic. He tried to laugh. But it was no use. Lady Blore's arrow had penetrated a joint in his harness.

After all he need take no notice of any of these monstrous effusions.

He was disgusted with opening letters. Nevertheless he hurried on.

Perhaps he should find others less intolerable.

A somewhat formal letter from his cousin the Bishop of Lostford, who had never been cordial to him since his engagement to Magdalen had been broken off. The Bishop pointed out certain grave abuses connected with house property at Lostford, at which the late Lord Lossiemouth had persistently connived, but which he hoped his successor might enquire into personally and redress.

Quant.i.ties of other letters were torn open and aimed in b.a.l.l.s at the empty grate. But at last he came to a long one which he read breathlessly.

It was from the mother of the girl who had so recently refused him, an involved tortuous epistle, which implied that the daughter was seriously attached to him, and hinted that if he were to come forward again he would not be refused a second time. There was also a short, wavering, nondescript note with nothing in particular in it from the girl herself.

The mother had evidently made her write.

A very venomous expression settled on Lord Lossiemouth's heavy face. He suddenly took up a Bradshaw and looked out the trains for Lostford.

CHAPTER XXVIII

Tard oublie qui bien aime.

On this momentous afternoon Magdalen was sitting alone in the morning-room at Priesthope somewhat oppressed by an oncoming cold. It had not yet reached the violent and weeping stage. That was for to-morrow. She, who was generally sympathetically dressed, was reluctantly enveloped in a wiry red crochet-work shawl which Bessie had made for her, and had laid resolutely upon her shoulders before she went out.

She tried to read, but her eyes ached, and after a time she laid down her book, and her mind went back, as it had a way of doing--to Fay.

Fay had told her as ”a great secret” that she had accepted Wentworth.

She was so transfigured by happiness, so radiant, so absolutely unlike her former listless, colourless, carping self that Magdalen could only suppose that two shocks of joy had come simultaneously, the discovery that she loved her prim suitor, and the overwhelming relief to her tortured conscience of Michael's release.

Wentworth and Michael were still at Venice. Michael, it seemed, had been prostrated by excitement, and had been too weak to travel immediately.

But they would be at Barford in a few days' time.

When Magdalen saw Fay entirely absorbed in trying on a succession of new summer hats, sent for from London in preparation for Wentworth's return, she asked herself for the twentieth time whether Fay had entirely forgotten her previous attraction for Michael, or that there might be some awkwardness in meeting her faithful lover and servant again, especially as the future wife of his brother.

Two years had certainly elapsed since that sudden flare-up of disastrous pa.s.sion, and in two years much can be forgotten. But after two years everything may still be remembered, as Magdalen knew well. And she feared that Michael was among those who remember.

Magdalen had that day told Fay of her father's intention of marrying again, but she took almost no notice of the announcement. To use one of Aunt Aggie's metaphors, the news ”seemed to slide off her back like a duck.”