Part 53 (1/2)
”Heard what?” turning somewhat savagely upon him.
”My dear fellow,”--affectionate entreaty in his tone,--”do not be offended with me. Will you not listen, Cyril? It is very painful to me to speak, but how can I see my brother so--so shamefully taken in without uttering a word of warning.”
”If you were less tragic and a little more explicit it might help matters,” replies Cyril, with a sneer and a short unpleasant laugh. ”Do speak plainly.”
”I will, then,”--desperately,--”since you desire it. There is more between Trant and Mrs. Arlington than we know of. I do not speak without knowledge. From several different sources I have heard the same story,--of his infatuation for some woman, and of his having taken a house for her in some remote spot. No names were mentioned, mind; but, from what I have unwillingly listened to it is impossible not to connect these evil whispers that are afloat with him and her. Why does he come so often to the neighborhood and yet never dare to present himself at Chetwoode?”
”And you believe Trant capable of so far abusing the rights of friends.h.i.+p as to ask you--_you_--to supply the house in the remote spot?”
”Unfortunately, I must.”
”You are speaking of your friend,”--with a bitter sneer,--”and you can coldly accuse him of committing so blackguardly an action?”
”If all I have heard be true (and I have no reason to doubt it), he is no longer any friend of mine,” says Guy, haughtily. ”I shall settle with him later on when I have clearer evidence; in the meantime it almost drives me mad to think he should have dared to bring down here, so close to my mother, his----”
”What?” cries Cyril, fiercely, thrusting his brother from him with pa.s.sionate violence. ”What is it you would say? Take care, Guy; take care: you have gone too far already. From whom, pray, have you learned your infamous story?”
”I beg your pardon,” Guy says, gently, extreme regret visible in his countenance. ”I should not have spoken so, under the circ.u.mstances. It was not from one alone, but from several, I heard what I now tell you,--though I must again remind you that no names were mentioned; still, I could not help drawing my own conclusions.”
”They lied!” returns Cyril, pa.s.sionately, losing his head. ”You may tell them so for me. And you,”--half choking,--”you lie too when you repeat such vile slanders.”
”It is useless to argue with you,” Guy says, coldly, the blood mounting hotly to his forehead at Cyril's insulting words, while his expression grows stern and impenetrable. ”I waste time. Yet this last word I will say: Go down to The Cottage--now--this moment--and convince yourself of the truth of what I have said.”
He turns angrily away: while Cyril, half mad with indignation and unacknowledged fear, follows this final piece of advice, and almost unconsciously leaving the house, takes the wonted direction, and hardly draws breath until the trim hedges and pretty rustic gates of The Cottage are in view.
The day is showery, threatening since dawn, and now the rain is falling thickly, though he heeds it not at all.
As with laggard steps he draws still nearer the abode of her he loves yet does not wholly trust, the sound of voices smites upon his ear. He is standing upon the very spot--somewhat elevated--that overlooks the arbor where so long ago Miss Beauchamp stood and learned his acquaintance with Mrs. Arlington. Here now he too stays his steps and gazes spell-bound upon what he sees before him.
In the arbor, with his back turned to Cyril, is a man, tall, elderly, with an iron-gray moustache. Though not strictly handsome, he has a fine and very military bearing, and a figure quite unmistakable to one who knows him: with a sickly chill at his heart, Cyril acknowledges him to be Colonel Trant.
Cecilia is beside him. She is weeping bitterly, but quietly, and with one hand conceals her face with her handkerchief. The other is fast imprisoned in both of Trant's.
A film settles upon Cyril's eyes, a dull faintness overpowers him, involuntarily he places one hand upon the trunk of a near elm to steady himself; yet through the semi-darkness, the strange, unreal feeling that possesses him, the voices still reach him cruelly distinct.
”Do not grieve so terribly: it breaks my heart to see you, darling, _darling_,” says Trant, in a low, impa.s.sioned tone, and raising the hand he holds, presses his lips to it tenderly. The slender white fingers tremble perceptibly under the caress, and then Cecilia says, in a voice hardly audible through her tears:
”I am so unhappy! it is all my fault; knowing you loved me, I should have told you before of----”
But her voice breaks the spell: Cyril, as it meets his ears, rouses himself with a start. Not once again does he even glance in her direction, but with a muttered curse at his own folly, turns and goes swiftly homeward.
A very frenzy of despair and disappointment rages within him: to have so loved,--to be so foully betrayed! Her tears, her sorrow (connected no doubt with some early pa.s.sages between her and Trant), because of their very poignancy, only render him the more furious.
On reaching Chetwoode he shuts himself into his own room, and, feigning an excuse, keeps himself apart from the rest of the household all the remainder of the evening and the night. ”Knowing you loved me,”--the words ring in his ears. Ay, she knew it,--who should know it better?--but had carefully kept back all mention of the fact when pressed by him, Cyril, upon the subject. All the world knew what he, poor fool, had been the last to discover. And what was it her tender conscience was accusing her of not having told Trant before?--of her flirtation, as no doubt she mildly termed all the tender looks and speeches, and clinging kisses, and loving protestations so freely bestowed upon Cyril,--of her flirtation, no doubt.
The next morning, after a sleepless night, he starts for London, and there spends three reckless, miserable days that leave him wan and aged through reason of the conflict he is waging with himself. After which a mad desire to see again the cause of all his misery, to openly accuse her of her treachery, to declare to her all the irreparable mischief she has done, the utter ruin she has made of his life, seizes hold upon him, and, leaving the great city, and reaching Truston, he goes straight from the station to The Cottage once so dear.
In her garden Cecilia is standing all alone. The wind is sighing plaintively through the trees that arch above her head, the thousand dying leaves are fluttering to her feet. There is a sense of decay and melancholy in all around that harmonizes exquisitely with the dejection of her whole manner. Her att.i.tude is sad and drooping, her air depressed; there are tears, and an anxious, expectant look in her gray eyes.
”Pining for her lover, no doubt,” says Cyril, between his teeth (in which supposition he is right); and then he opens the gate, and goes quickly up to her.