Airy Fairy Lilian Part 53

"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.

As she hears the well-known click of the latch she turns, and, seeing him, lets fall unheeded to the ground the basket she is holding, and runs to him with eyes alight, and soft cheeks tinged with a lovely generous pink, and holds out her hands to him with a little low glad cry.

"At last, truant!" she exclaims, joyfully; "after three whole long, long days; and what has kept you from me? Why, Cyril, Cyril!"--recoiling, while a dull ashen shade replaces the gay tinting of her cheeks,--"what has happened? How oddly you look! You,--you are in trouble?"

"I am," in a changed, harsh tone she scarcely realizes to be his, moving back with a gesture of contempt from the extended hands that would so gladly have clasped his. "In so far you speak the truth: I have discovered all. One lover, it appears, was not sufficient for you; you should dupe another for your amus.e.m.e.nt. It is an old story, but none the less bitter. No, it is useless your speaking," staying her with a pa.s.sionate movement: "I tell you I know _all_."

"All what?" she asks. She has not removed from his her l.u.s.trous eyes, though her lips have turned very white.

"Your perfidy."

"Cyril, explain yourself," she says, in a low, agonized tone, her pallor changing to a deep crimson. And to Cyril hateful certainty appears if possible more certain by reason of this luckless blush.

"Ay, you may well change countenance," he says, with suppressed fury in which keen agony is blended; "have you yet the grace to blush? As to explanation, I scarcely think you can require it; yet, as you demand it, you shall have it. For weeks I have been hearing of you tales in which your name and Trant's were always mingled; but I disregarded them; I madly shut my ears and was deaf to them; I would not believe, until it was too late, until I saw and learned beyond dispute the folly of my faith. I was here last Friday evening!"

"Yes?" calmly, though in her soft eyes a deep well of bitterness has sprung.

"Well, you were there, in that arbor"--pointing to it--"where _we_"--with a scornful laugh--"so often sat; but then you had a more congenial companion. Trant was with you. He held your hand, he caressed it; he called you his 'darling,' and you allowed it, though indeed why should you not? doubtless it is a customary word from him to you! And then you wept as though your heart, your _heart_"--contemptuously-- "would break. Were you confessing to him your coquetry with me? and perhaps obtaining an easy forgiveness?"

"No, I was not," quietly, though there is immeasurable scorn in her tone.

"No?" slightingly. "For what, then, were you crying?"

"Sir,"--with a first outward sign of indignation,--"I refuse to tell you. By what right do you now ask the question? yesterday, nay, an hour since, I should have felt myself bound to answer any inquiry of yours, but not now. The tie between us, a frail one as it seems to me, is broken; our engagement is at an end: I shall not answer you!"

"Because you dare not," retorts he, fiercely, stung by her manner.

"I think you dare too much when you venture so to address me," in a low clear tone. "And yet, as it is in all human probability the last time we shall ever meet, and as I would have you remember all your life long the gross injustice you have done me, I shall satisfy your curiosity. But recollect, sir, these are indeed the final words that shall pa.s.s between us.

"A year ago Colonel Trant so far greatly honored me as to ask me to marry him: for many reasons I then refused. Twice since I came to Chetwoode he has been to see me,--once to bring me law papers of some importance, and last Friday to again ask me to be his wife. Again I refused. I wept then, because, unworthy as I am, I know I was giving pain to the truest, and, as I know now,"--with a faint trembling in her voice, quickly subdued--"the _only_ friend I have! When declining his proposal, I gave my reason for doing so! I told him I loved another!

That other was you!"

Casting this terrible revenge in his teeth, she turns, and, walking majestically into the house, closes the door with significant haste behind her.

This is the one solitary instance of inhospitality shown by Cecilia in all her life. Never until now was she known to shut her door in the face of trouble. And surely Cyril's trouble at this moment is sore and needy!

To disbelieve Cecilia when face to face with her is impossible. Her eyes are truth itself. Her whole manner, so replete with dignity and offended pride, declares her innocent. Cyril stands just where she had left him, in stunned silence, for at least a quarter of an hour, repeating to himself miserably all that she has said, and reminding himself with cold-blooded cruelty of all he has said to her.

At the end of this awful fifteen minutes, he bethinks himself his hair must now, if ever, be turned gray; and then, a happier and more resolute thought striking him, he takes his courage in his two hands, and walking boldly up to the hall door, knocks and demands admittance with really admirable composure. Abominable composure, thinks Cecilia, who in spite of her stern determination never to know him again, has been watching him covertly from behind a handkerchief and a bedroom curtain all this time, and is now stationed at the top of the staircase, with dim eyes, but very acute ears.

"Yes," Kate tells him, "her mistress is at home," and forthwith shows him into the bijou drawing-room. After which she departs to tell her mistress of his arrival.

Three minutes, that to Cyril's excited fancy lengthen themselves into twenty, pa.s.s away slowly, and then Kate returns.

"Her mistress's compliments, and she has a terrible headache, and will Mr. Chetwoode be so kind as to excuse her?"

Mr. Chetwoode on this occasion is not kind. "He is sorry," he stammers, "but if Mrs. Arlington could let him see her for five minutes, he would not detain her longer. He has something of the utmost importance to say to her."