Part 19 (2/2)

What thou bidd'st Unargued I obey; so G.o.d ordains: G.o.d is thy law; thou mine, to know no more Is woman's happiest knowledge, and her praise.

MILTON.

Lady Redmond sat in her ”blue nestie;” but this bright winter's morning she was not alone. A better companion than her white kitten, or her favorite Nero, or even her faithful friend Pierre the St.

Bernard, occupied the other velvet rocking-chair.

Outside the snow lay deep and unbroken on the terrace, the little lake was a sheet of blue ice, and the suns.h.i.+ne broke on its crisp surface in sparkles of light.

The avenue itself looked like the glade of some enchanted forest, with snow and icicles pendent from every bough; while above stretched the pure blue winter's sky, blue-gray, shadowless, tenderly indicative of softness without warmth and color without radiance.

Fay in her dark ruby dress looked almost as brilliant as the morning itself as she sat by the fire talking to her husband's cousin Erle Huntingdon, who had come down to while away an idle week or two at the old Hall.

He had been there for ten days now, and he and Fay had become very intimate. Erle had been much struck by the singular beauty of Hugh's child-wife, and he very soon felt almost a brotherly fondness for the gentle little creature, with her soft vivacity and innocent mirth.

It had been a very pleasant ten days to both of them, to Fay especially, who led rather a lonely life.

Erle was such a pleasant companion; he was never too tired or too busy to talk to her. He was so good-natured, so frank and affectionate, so eager to wait on her and do her any little service, that Fay wondered what she would do without him.

Hugh smiled at them indulgently. It always pleased him to see his Wee Wifie happy and amused; but he thought they were like two children together, and secretly marveled at the sc.r.a.ps of conversation that reached his ears. He thought it was a good thing that Fay should have a companion for her rides and drives when he was too busy to go with her himself, and somehow Hugh was always too busy now.

So Fay and Erle scoured the country together, and when Frost came they skated for hours on the little lake.

Sir Hugh stood and watched them once, and they came skimming across the ice to meet him, hand in hand, Fay looking like a bright-eyed bird in her furs.

It was delicious, Fay said, and would not Hugh join them? but her husband shook his head. When other people came to skate too, and Fay poured out tea for her friends in the damask drawing-room, he always kept near her, as in duty bound; but he took no active part in the festivities, and people wondered why Sir Hugh seemed so grave and unlike himself, and then they glanced at Fay's happy face and seemed mystified.

Erle in his heart was mystified too. He had always liked his cousin and had looked up to him, thinking him a fine fellow; but he noticed a great change in him when he came down to the old Hall to pay his respects to the little bride. He thought Hugh looked moody and ill; that he was often irritable about trifles. He had never noticed that sharp tone in his voice before. His cheerfulness, too, seemed forced, and he had grown strangely unsociable in his habits. Of course he was very busy, with his own estate and his wife's to look after; but he wondered why Fay did not accompany him when he rode to some distant farm, and why he shut himself up so much in his study. The old Hugh, he remembered, had been the most genial of companions, with a hearty laugh and a fund of humor; but he had never heard him laugh once in all these ten days.

Erle felt vaguely troubled in his kind-hearted way when he watched Hugh and his little wife together. Hugh's manners did not satisfy Erle's chivalrous enthusiasm. He thought he treated Fay too much like a child. He was gentle with her, he humored her, and petted her; but he never asked her opinion, or seemed to take pleasure in her society.

”Why on earth has he married her?” he said once to himself as he paced his comfortable room rather indignantly. ”He is not a bit in love with her--one sees that in a moment, and yet the poor little thing adores him. It makes one feel miserable to see her gazing at him as though she were wors.h.i.+ping him; and he hardly looks at her, and yet she is the prettiest little creature I have seen for a long time. How Percy would rave about her if he saw her; but I forgot, Percy's idol is a dark-eyed G.o.ddess.”

”All the same,” went on Erle, restlessly; ”no man has any right to treat his wife as a child. Hugh never seems to want to know what Fay wishes about anything. He settles everything off-hand, and expects her to be satisfied with what he has done; and she is such a dear, gentle thing that she never objects. It is 'Yes, dear Hugh,' or 'certainly, if you wish it, Hugh,' from morning to night; somehow that sickens a fellow. I dare say she is a little childish and crude in her ideas; that aunt of hers must be a duffer to have brought her up like a little nun; but she is sensible in her way. Hugh had no idea that she was reading the paper for an hour yesterday, that she might talk to him about that case in which he is so interested, or he would hardly have snubbed her as he did, by telling her she knew nothing about it.

She looked so disappointed, poor little thing, there were tears in her eyes; but Hugh never saw them, he never does see if she is a little tired or dull, and I don't call that treating a wife well.”

Erle was working himself up into quite a virtuous fit of indignation on Fay's behalf; but presently he became secretly anxious. Before the end of his visit he grew afraid that more was amiss with Hugh than he at first guessed. He had often stayed with him before, and Hugh had visited them at Belgrave House, but he had never noticed any sign of self-indulgence.

He thought Hugh was beginning to take more wine than was good for him.

He complained of sleeping badly, and had recourse to narcotics. He was reckless of his health too, and worked often far into the night, and when Erle remonstrated with him, he only said he could not sleep, and he might as well occupy himself.

But in reality he never guessed, except in a vague way, the real reason for this change in his cousin. He would have been shocked and startled if he had known the strange morbid fever that was robbing Hugh of all rest.

He was hungering and thirsting for the sight of a face that he said to himself he had better never look on again; his very nearness to Margaret kept him restless, and made his life intolerable.

What a fool he had been to marry, he told himself; to let that child bind him down to this sort of life. If he could only break away for a time--if he could travel and try what change would do for him; but this quiet existence was maddening.

<script>