The Honorable Miss Part 43

"I want to do nothing of the kind, Tilly Bell. I only want to get at the naked truth."

"It was your naked throat a minute ago."

"Well, they hang together, my throat and the truth. Has that young man got a wife in this house, or has he not?"

"He has not, Mrs. Butler, and you forfeit my friends.h.i.+p from this minute."

"Oh, I forfeit it, do I? (Come, Maria, we'll be going.) Very well, Mrs.

Bell, I have forfeited your friends.h.i.+p, very well. And there's no young woman who oughtn't to be here, concealed on these premises. (Maria, stay looking out at the window for a minute.) There's no strange young woman here, oh, of course not. Poor Bell, honest man, only _fancies_ he has a visitor in the house."

Here Mrs. Bell turned ghastly pale. Mrs. Butler saw that she had unexpectedly driven a nail home, and with fiendish glee pursued her advantage.

"A visitor! oh, yes, _all the lodgings were full,_ packed! and it was so convenient to take in a visitor a--_friend._ Hunt the baker has been speaking about it. I didn't listen--I make it a point _never_ to listen to gossip--but Maria--Maria, you can come here now. Have the goodness, Maria, to tell Mrs. Bell exactly what Hunt said, when you went in to buy the brown loaf for me last Friday."

"Oh, sister--I--I really don't remember."

"Don't remember! Piddle dumpling! You remembered well enough when you came back all agog with the news. I reproved you for listening to idle gossip, and you read a sermon of Blair's on evil speaking aloud to me that night. You shall read sermon ten to-night. It's on lying. Well, Mrs. Bell, _I_ can repeat what my poor sister has forgotten. It was only to the effect that you and Bell must have had a windfall left you, and _he_ never knew a visitor treated so well as you treated yours.

The dainty cakes you had to get her, and the fuss over her, and every blessed thing paid down for with silver of the realm. Well, well, sometimes it is _convenient_ to have a visitor. But now I must leave. Maria, we'll be going. You have got to get to your sermon on lying as soon as possible. Good-bye, Mrs. Bell. Perhaps you'll be able to tell some one else why the whole town is talking about Miss Hart--whoever Miss Hart is--and about Beatrice, and the wedding being put off--and Captain Bertram going off into high hysterics in--(Maria, you can go back to the window)--in a certain young lady's private room.

Now I'm off. Come, Maria."

CHAPTER x.x.x.

GUARDIANS ARE NOT ALWAYS TO BE ENVIED.

It would have been difficult to find a more easy-going, kind, happy-tempered man than Mr. Ingram. He had never married--this was not because he had not loved. Stories were whispered about him, and these stories had truth for their foundation--that when he was young he had been engaged to a girl of high birth, great beauty of person, and rare n.o.bility of mind. Evelyn St. Just had died in her youth, and Mr. Ingram for her sake had never brought a wife home to the pleasant old Rectory.

His sorrow had softened, but in no degree soured the good man. There had been nothing in it to sour any one--no shade of bitterness, no thread of unfaithfulness. The Rector firmly believed in a future state of bliss and reunion, and he regarded his happiness as only deferred. As far as his flock knew, the sorrow which had come to him in his youth only gave him a peculiar sympathy for peculiar troubles. To all in sorrow the Rector was the best of friends, but if the case was one where hearts were touched, if that love which binds a man to a woman was in any way the cause of the distress, then the Rector was indeed aroused to give of his best to comfort and a.s.sist.

On the evening after her strange interview with Josephine Hart, Beatrice put on her hat, and coming down to her mother where she sat as usual in the pleasant drawing-room, told her that she was going to see Mr.

Ingram.

"It is rather late to-night, surely, child?"

"No, mother, it is not too late. I want particularly to see Mr. Ingram to-night."

"Are you well, Bee? Your voice sounds tired."

"I am quite well, dear mother. Kiss me. I won't stay longer away than I can help."

She left the house. It was getting dusk now, and the distance between the Gray House and the Rectory was not small. But no Northbury girl feared to be out alone, and Beatrice walked quickly, and before long reached her destination.

The Rector was in--Beatrice would find him in his study. The old housekeeper did not dream of conducting Miss Meadowsweet to this apartment. She smiled at her affectionately, told her she knew the way herself, and left her.

When Beatrice entered the study the Rector got up and took his favorite by both her hands.

"I am glad to see you, my child," he said. "I was just feeling the slightest _soupcon_ of loneliness, so you have come in opportunely.

Sit down, Bee. I suppose Bertram will call for you presently."

Beatrice did not make any response to this remark, but she drew a little cane chair forward and sat down.

"Except your mother, no one will miss you more than I shall when you leave us, Beatrice," said the Rector. "You are quite right to go, my dear. Quite right. I see a useful and honorable career before you. But I may be allowed just once to say that I shall be lonely without my favorite."

"Dear Rector," said Beatrice. She came a little nearer, and almost timidly laid her hand on his knee. Then she looked in his face. "I am not going to leave you," she said.

"G.o.d bless my soul! What do you mean, child? Is anything wrong? You don't look quite yourself. Has that young scoundrel--if I thought--" the Rector got up. His face was red, he clenched his hand in no clerical style.

Beatrice also rose to her feet.

"He is not a scoundrel," she said. "Although if our engagement had gone on, and I had been married to Captain Bertram, he would have been one."

"Then you are not engaged? You have broken it off."

"I am not engaged. I have released Captain Bertram from his engagement to me."

"Beatrice! I did not expect this from you. His mother is attached to you--so are his sisters, while he himself, poor lad--! Bee, it was better you should find out your heart in time, but I am surprised--I am grieved. You should have known it before--before things went as far as this, my dear girl."

"Please, Mr. Ingram, listen to me. Sit down again, for I have a long story to tell. I have not changed my mind, nor am I guilty of any special fickleness. But circ.u.mstances have arisen which make it impossible for me to keep my engagement. Captain Bertram sees this as plainly as I do. He is very thankful to be released."

"Then he is a scoundrel, I thought as much."

"No, he isn't that. But he has been weak, poor fellow, and hara.s.sed, and tempted. And his mother has used all her influence. I know now what she wanted me for. Just for my money. But I've been saved in time."

"G.o.d bless me, this is very strange and dreadful. You puzzle me awfully."

"I will tell you the story, Rector, then you won't be puzzled. Do you remember once speaking to me about a girl you saw at the Manor lodge.

She was living there for a little. Her name was Hart."

"Yes, yes, a very handsome, queer girl. I spoke to Mrs. Bertram about her. She seemed to me to have taken an unjust prejudice against the poor lonely child."

"Mr. Ingram, Miss Hart is engaged to Loftus Bertram, and he will marry her next Tuesday."

"Beatrice, have you gone quite mad?

"No, I am as sane as any other girl who has got a shock, but who is resolved to do right. Captain Bertram shall marry Nina, because in heart they are married already, because they love each other, as I never could love him, nor he me, because they were betrothed to each other before he and I ever met, because Nina was dying for love of him, and only marrying him can save her. Oh, it was pitiable to see Nina, Mr. Ingram, and I am thankful--I shall be thankful to my dying day--that I saw her in time to save her."

"Beatrice, this is very strange and inexplicable. Where did you see Miss Hart? I thought she had left Northbury."

"She came back, because she could not stay away. She is at the Bells'. I saw her there to day, and I brought Loftus to her, and--Rector, they love each other. Oh, yes, yes--when I see how much they love each other.

I am thankful I am not to be married with only the shadow of such a reality."

"Then you never gave your heart to this young man?"

"Never! I thought I could help him. But my heart has not even stirred."

"You did not seem unhappy."