Part 23 (2/2)

”Oh, it was Miss Ferrers's morning-room, she told me so, and it had a bay window with a cus.h.i.+oned seat overlooking the garden. Oh, how lovely Miss Ferrers is, Hugh. I have never seen any one like her, never. I am sure she is as sweet and good as an angel, only I wish she did not look so sad: there were tears in her eyes once when we were talking; let me see, what were we talking about? oh, about those cottages you are building, she did look so interested--did you speak, dear?”

”No--go on,” he said, huskily; but if only Fay could have seen his face.

”I feel I should love her so if I could only see more of her. I could not help kissing her when I came away, but she did not seem at all surprised. Mr. Ferrers wished me G.o.d-speed in such a nice way, too.

Oh, they are dear people; I do wish you would let me know them, Hugh.”

”My dear child, it is impossible,” but Hugh spoke fast and nervously; ”have I not already explained to you that there can be no intimacy between Redmond Hall and the Grange. When old friends quarrel as we have, it is a fatal blow to all friends.h.i.+p.”

”You were old friends, then?” in some surprise, for he had never said as much to her before.

”Yes,” he returned, reluctantly, for he had not meant to admit this fact.

”But quarrels can be made up, Hugh; if it be only a misunderstanding, surely it could be put right.” But he silenced her somewhat haughtily.

”This is my affair, Fay--it is not like you to go against my wishes in this way; what can a child like you know about it? I should have thought a wife would have been willing to be guided by her husband, but you seem to think you know best.”

”Oh, no, Hugh”--very much ashamed at this--”I am quite sure you are always right; only”--hesitating a little as though she feared to offend him--”I should like you to tell me what the quarrel was about.”

For a moment Sir Hugh remained absolutely dumb with surprise; it was as though a dove had flown in his face; he had never known Fay persistent before. If only she had a.s.serted herself from the beginning of their married life, she would have gained more influence over her husband; if she had entrenched herself in her wifely dignity, and refused to be treated like a child, kept in the dark about everything, and petted, or civilly snubbed according to her husband's moods, she would have won his confidence by this time.

Sir Hugh was quite conscious that he had been guilty of a grievous error in not telling Fay about Margaret before she became his wife; he wished he had done so from the bottom of his heart; but procrastination made the duty a far more difficult one; he felt it would be so awkward to tell her now, he could not tell how she might take it: it might make her unhappy, poor little thing; it would be a pity to dim her brightness.

He was sheltering his moral weakness under these plausible excuses, but somehow they failed to satisfy his conscience. He knew he had done a mean thing to marry Fay when his heart was solely and entirely Margaret's; what sort of blessing could attach to such a union?

But when Fay begged him to tell her the cause of his estrangement from the Ferrers, he positively shrunk from, the painful ordeal--he was not fit for it, he told himself, his nerves were disorganized, and Fay looked far from well; some day he would tell her, but not now; and the old sharpness was in his voice as he answered her.

”I can not tell you; you should not tease me so, Fay. I think you might have a little faith in your husband.”

”Very well, dear, I will not ask,” she replied, gently; but the tears sprung to her eyes in the darkness. She would not think him hard if she could help it; of course she was young--ah, terribly young--and Hugh was so much older and wiser. The ”Polite Match-Maker” had told her that husbands and wives were to have no secrets from each other; but she supposed that when the wife was so much younger it made a difference--perhaps when she got older, and knew more about things, Hugh would tell her more. She longed to grow older--it would be years before she would be twenty; why? she was only seventeen last month.

Hugh thought his Wee Wifie was tired, and tried to coax her to go to sleep; he brought her another cus.h.i.+on, and attended to the fire, and then went away to leave her to her nap. Fay would rather have had him stay and talk to her, but she was too unselfish to say so; she lay in her pretty room watching the fire-light play on the walls, and thinking first of her husband and then of Margaret. She longed with a vague wistfulness that she were more like that lovely Miss Ferrers, and then, perhaps, Hugh would care to talk to her. Were the creeping shadows bringing her strange thoughts? Fay could not have told any one why there were tears on her cheeks; was the consciousness beginning to dawn upon her that she was not close enough to her husband's heart?--that she was his pet, but not his friend--that other wives whom she knew were not kept outside in the cold?

”I am not too young to understand, if Hugh would only think so,” she said to herself plaintively. ”How could I be, when I love him so?”

When Sir Hugh returned to the room an hour later, he was sorry to see Fay look so flushed and weary. ”We shall have you ill after all this,”

he said, reproachfully; ”why have you not been a good child and gone to sleep as I told you?”

”Because I was troubling too much. Oh, Hugh!” clasping him round the neck, and her little hands felt hot and dry, ”are you sure that you are not angry with me, and that you really love me?”

”Of course I am not angry with you,” in a jesting tone. ”What an absurd idea, Wee Wifie.”

”I like you to call me that,” she answered, thoughtfully, drawing down one of his hands and laying her cheek on it; and Hugh thought as Margaret had, what a baby face it was. ”I mean to grow older, Hugh, and wiser too if I can; but you must be patient with me, dear. I know I can not be all you want just at present--I am only Wee Wifie now.”

”Well, I do not wish to change her,” replied Sir Hugh, with a touch of real tenderness in his voice, and then very gently he unloosed the clinging arms. Somehow Fay's voice and look haunted him as he went down-stairs. ”She is a dear little thing,” he said to himself, as he sat in his library sorting his papers; ”I wish I were a better husband to her,” and then he wondered what Margaret had thought of his Wee Wifie.

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