The Baronet's Bride Part 21

"And now you are angry. Why, Sir Everard!" catching for the first time a glimpse of his deathly white face, "I didn't think you felt like this. Oh! I beg your pardon with all my heart for laughing. I believe I should laugh on the scaffold. It's dreadfully vulgar, but it was born with me, I'm afraid. Did I gallop right into your heart's best affections at the fox-hunt? Why, I thought I shocked you dreadfully. I know I tried to. Won't you shake hands, Sir Everard, and part friends?"

"Miss Hunsden will always find me her friend if she ever needs one.

Farewell!"

Again he was turning away. He would not touch the proffered palm. He was so deathly white, and his voice shook so, that the hot tears rushed into the impetuous Harrie's eyes.

"I am so sorry," she said, with the simple humility of a little child.

"Please forgive me, Sir Everard. I know it was horrid of me to laugh; but you don't really care for me, you know. You only think you do; and I--oh! I'm only a flighty little girl of seventeen, and I don't love anybody in the world but papa, and I never mean to be married--at least, not for ages to come. Do forgive me."

He bowed low, but he would neither answer nor take her hand. He was far too deeply hurt.

Before she could speak again he was gone.

"And he's as mad as a hatter!" said Harrie, ruefully. "Oh, dear, dear!

what torments men are, and what a bore falling in love is! And I liked him, too, better than any of them, and thought we were going to be brothers in arms--Damon and--what's his name?--and all that sort of thing! It's of no use my ever hoping for a friend. I shall never have one in this lower world, for just so sure as I get to like a person, that person must go and fall in love with me, and then we quarrel and part. It's hard."

Miss Hunsden sighed deeply, and went into the house. And Sir Everard rode home as if the fiend was after him--like a man gone mad--flung the reins of the foaming horse to the astounded groom, rushed up to his room and locked himself in, and declined his luncheon and his dinner.

When he came down to breakfast next morning, with a white, wild face, and livid rings round his eyes, he electrified the family by his abrupt announcement:

"I start for Constantinople to-morrow. From thence I shall make a tour of the East. I will not return to England for the next three years."

CHAPTER XIII.

LYING IN BRITHLOW WOOD.

A thunderbolt falling at your feet from a cloudless summer sky must be rather astounding in its unexpectedness, but no thunderbolt ever created half the consternation Sir Everard's fierce announcement did.

"Going away!" his mother murmured--"going to Constantinople. My dear Everard, you don't mean it?"

"Don't I?" he said, fiercely. "Don't I look as if I meant it?"

"But what has happened? Oh, Everard, what does all this mean?"

"It means, mother, that I am a mad, desperate and reckless man; that I don't care whether I ever return to England again or not."

Lady Kingsland's own imperious spirit began to rise. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes flashed.

"It means you are a headstrong, selfish, cruel boy! You don't care an iota what pain you inflict on others, if you are thwarted ever so slightly yourself. I have indulged you from your childhood. You have never known one unsatisfied wish it was in my power to gratify, and this is my reward!"

He sat in sullen silence. He felt the reproach keenly in its simple truth; but his heart was too sore, the pain too bitter, to let him yield.

"You promise me obedience in the dearest wish of my heart," her ladys.h.i.+p went on, heedless of the presence of Mildred and Sybilla, "and you break that promise at the first sight of a wild young hoiden in a hunting-field. It is on her account you frighten me to death in this heartless manner, because I refuse my consent to your consummating your own disgrace."

"My disgrace? Take care, mother!"

"Do you dare speak in that tone to me?" She rose up from the table, livid with pa.s.sion. "I repeat it, Sir Everard Kingsland--your disgrace! Mystery shrouds this girl's birth and her father's marriage--if he ever was married--and where there is mystery there is guilt."

"A sweeping a.s.sertion!" the baronet said, with concentrated scorn; "but in the present instance, my good mother, a little out of place. The mystery is of your own making. The late Mrs. Harold Hunsden was a native of New York. There she was married--there she died at her daughter's birth. Captain Hunsden cherishes her memory all too deeply to make it the town talk, hence all the county is up agape inventing slander. I hope you are satisfied?"

Lady Kingsland stood still, gazing at him in surprise.

"Who told you all this?" she asked.

"She who had the best right to know--the slandered woman's daughter."

"Indeed--indeed!" slowly and searchingly. "You have been talking to her, then? And your whole heart is really set on this matter, Everard?"

She came a step nearer; her voice softened; she laid one slender hand, with infinite tenderness, on his shoulder.

"What does it matter?" he retorted, impatiently. "For Heaven's sake, let me alone, mother!"

"My boy, if you really love this wild girl so much, if your whole heart is set on her, I must withdraw my objections. I can refuse my darling nothing. Woo Harriet Hunsden, wed her, and bring her here. I will try and receive her kindly for your sake."

Sir Everard Kingsland shook off the fair, white, caressing hand, and rose to his feet, with a harsh, strident laugh. "You are very good, my mother, but it is a little too late. Miss Hunsden did me the honor to refuse me yesterday."

"Refuse you?"

"Even so--incredible as it sounds! You see this little barbarian is not so keenly alive to the magnificent honor of an alliance with the house of Kingsland as some others are, and she said No plumply when I asked her to be my wife."

Again that harsh, jarring laugh rang out, and with the last word he strode from the room, closing the door with an emphatic bang.

Lady Kingsland sunk down in the nearest chair, perfectly overcome.

Sybilla Silver raised her tea-cup, and hid a malicious smile there.

"Refused him!" my lady murmured, helplessly. "Mildred, did you hear what he said?"

"Yes, mamma," Mildred replied, in distress. "She is a very proud girl--Harriet Hunsden."

"Proud! Good heavens!" my lady sprung to her feet, goaded by the word.

"The wretched little pauper! the uneducated, uncivilized, horrible little wretch! What business has she with pride--with nothing under the sun to be proud of? Refuse my son! Oh, she must be mad, or a fool, or both! I will never forgive her as long as I live; nor him, either, for asking her!"

With which my lady flung out of the apartment, in a towering rage, and went up to her room and fell into hysterics and the arms of her maid on the spot.

It was a day of distress at Kingsland Court--gloom and despair reigned.

Lady Kingsland, shut up in her own apartments, would not be comforted--and Sir Everard, busied with his preparations, was doggedly determined to carry out his designs. Sybilla was the only one who enjoyed the situation.

As she stood in the front portico, early in the afternoon, humming an opera tune, a servant wearing the Hunsden livery rode up to her and delivered a twisted note.

"For Sir Everard," said the man, and rode away.

Miss Silver took it, looked at it with one of her curious little smiles, thought a moment, turned, and carried it straight to my lady.

My lady examined it with angry eyes.

"From Miss Hunsden," she said, contemptuously. "She repents her hasty decision, no doubt, and sends to tell him so. Bold, designing creature! Find Sir Everard's valet, Miss Silver, and give it to him."