Red Hair Part 24

Goodness and dearness like this do not suit male creatures as well as caprice, it seems.

She was so good to me, and talked in the nicest way. I quite forgot I was a homeless wanderer, and arrived at Claridge's about half-past four in almost good spirits.

"You won't forget I am to be one of your friends," Lady Merrenden said, as I bid her good-bye.

"Indeed I won't," I replied, and she drove off, smiling at me.

I do wonder what she will think of my marriage with Christopher.

Now it is night. I have had a miserable, lonely dinner in my sitting-room. Veronique has been most gracious and coddling--she feels Mr.

Carruthers in the air, I suppose--and so I must go to bed.

Oh, why am I not happy, and why don't I think this is a delightful and unusual situation, as I once would have done? I only feel depressed and miserable, and as if I wished Christopher at the bottom of the sea. I have told myself how good-looking he is, and how he attracted me at Branches, but that was before--Yes, I may as well write what I was going to--before Lord Robert arrived. Well, he and Lady Ver are talking together on a nice sofa by now, I suppose, in a big, well-lit drawing-room, and--Oh, I _wish_, I _wish_ I had never made any bargain with her--perhaps, now, in that case--Ah, well----

_Sunday afternoon._

No, I can't bear it. All the morning I have been in a fever, first hot and then cold. What will it be like? Oh, I shall faint when he kisses me. And I know he will be dreadful like that; I have seen it in his eye. He will eat me up. Oh, I am sure I shall hate it. No man has ever kissed me in my life, and I can't judge, but I am sure it is frightful--unless--I feel as if I shall go crazy if I stay here any longer. I can't--I can't stop and wait and face it. I must have some air first. There is a misty fog. I would like to go out and get lost in it, and I _will_, too! Not get lost, perhaps, but go out in it, and alone. I won't have even Veronique. I shall go by myself into the park. It is growing nearly dark, though only three o'clock. I have got an hour. It looks mysterious, and will soothe me, and suit my mood, and then, when I come in again, I shall perhaps be able to bear it bravely, kisses and all.

CLARIDGE'S,

Sunday evening, _November 27th._

I have a great deal to write, and yet it is only a few hours since I shut up this book and replaced the key on my bracelet.

By a quarter-past three I was making my way through Grosvenor Square.

Everything was misty and blurred, but not actually a thick fog--or any chance of being lost. By the time I got into the park it had lifted a little. It seemed close and warm, and as I went on I got more depressed. I have never been out alone before--that in itself seemed strange, and ought to have amused me.

The image of Christopher kept floating in front of me; his face seemed to have the expression of a satyr. Well, at all events, he would never be able to break my heart like "Alicia Verney's"--nothing could ever make me care for him. I tried to think of all the good I was going to get out of the affair, and how really fond I was of Branches.

I walked very fast; people loomed at me, and then disappeared in the mist.

It was getting almost dusk, and suddenly I felt tired and sat down on a bench.

I had wandered into a side path where there were no chairs. On the bench before mine I saw, as I pa.s.sed, a tramp huddled up. I wondered what his thoughts were, and if he felt any more miserable than I did. I dare say I was crouching in a depressed position, too.

Not many people went by, and every moment it grew darker. In all my life, even on the days when Mrs. Carruthers taunted me about mamma being n.o.body, I have never felt so wretched. Tears kept rising in my eyes, and I did not even worry to blink them away. Who would see me, and who in the world would care if they did see?

Suddenly I was conscious that a very perfect figure was coming out of the mist towards me, but not until he was close to me, and stopping, with a start, peered into my face, did I recognize it was Lord Robert.

"Evangeline!" he exclaimed, in a voice of consternation. "I--what, oh!

what is the matter?"

No wonder he was surprised. Why he had not taken me for some tramp, too, and pa.s.sed on, I don't know.

"Nothing," I said, as well as I could, and tried to tilt my hat over my eyes. I had no veil on, unfortunately.

"I have just been for a walk. Why do you call me Evangeline and why are you not in Northumberland?"

He looked so tall and beautiful, and his face had no expression of contempt or anger now, only distress and sympathy.

"I was suddenly put on guard yesterday, and could not get leave. I am going to-morrow," he said, not answering the first part, "but, oh, I can't bear to see you sitting here alone and looking so, so miserable. Mayn't I take you home? You will catch cold in the damp."

"Oh no, not yet. I won't go back yet," I said, hardly realizing what I was saying. He sat down beside me and slipped his hand into my m.u.f.f, pressing my clasped fingers, the gentlest, friendliest caress a child might have made in sympathy. It touched some foolish chord in my nature, some want of self-control inherited from mamma's ordinary mother, I suppose; anyway the tears poured down my face. I could not help it. Oh, the shame of it! To sit crying in the park, in front of Lord Robert, of all people in the world, too!

"Dear, dear little girl," he said, "tell me about it," and he held my hand in my m.u.f.f with his strong, warm hand.

"I--I have nothing to tell," I said, choking down a sob. "I am ashamed for you to see me like this, only--I am feeling so very miserable."

"Dear child!" he said. "Well, you are not to be--I won't have it. Has some one been unkind to you? Tell me, tell me." His voice was trembling with distress.

"It's--it's nothing," I mumbled.

I dared not look at him, I knew his eyebrows would be up in that way that attracts me so dreadfully.

"Listen," he whispered almost, and bent over me. "I want you to be friends with me so that I can help you. I want you to go back to the time we packed your books together. G.o.d knows what has come between us since--it is not of my doing. But I want to take care of you, dear little girl, to-day. It--oh, it hurts me so to see you crying here!"

"I--would like to be friends," I said. "I never wanted to be anything else, but I could not help it, and I can't now."

"Won't you tell me the reason?" he pleaded. "You have made me so dreadfully unhappy about it. I thought all sorts of things. You know I am a jealous beast."

There can't in the world be another voice as engaging as Lord Robert's, and he has a trick of p.r.o.nouncing words that is too attractive; and the way his mouth goes when he is speaking, showing his perfectly chiselled lips under the little mustache! There is no use pretending. I was sitting there on the bench going through thrills of emotion and longing for him to take me in his arms. It is too frightful to think of. I must be bad, after all.

"Now you are going to tell me everything about it," he commanded. "To begin with: what made you suddenly change at Trylands after the first afternoon--and then, what is it that makes you so unhappy now?"

"I can't tell you either," I said, very low. I hoped the common grandmother would not take me as far as doing mean tricks to Lady Ver.

"Oh, you have made me wild!" he exclaimed, letting go my hand and leaning both elbows on his knees, while he pushed his hat to the back of his head--"perfectly mad with fury and jealousy! That brute Malcolm! And then looking at Campion at dinner, and, worst of all, Christopher in the box at 'Carmen'! Wicked, naughty little thing! And yet underneath I have a feeling it is for some absurd reason, and not for sheer devilment. If I thought that, I would soon get not to care. I did think it at 'Carmen.'"

"Yes, I know," I said.

"You know what?" he looked up, startled; then he took my hand again and sat close to me.

"Oh, please, please don't, Lord Robert!" I said.

It really made me quiver so with the loveliest feeling I have ever known, that I knew I should never be able to keep my head if he went on.

"Please, please don't hold my hand," I said. "It--it makes me not able to behave nicely."

"Darling," he whispered, "then it shows that you like me, and I sha'n't let go until you tell me every little bit."

"Oh, I can't, I can't!" I felt too tortured, and yet, waves of joy were rus.h.i.+ng over me. That _is_ a word, "darling," for giving feelings down the back.

"Evangeline," he said, quite sternly, "will you answer this question, then: Do you like me, or do you hate me? Because, as you must know very well, I love you."