Tiny Luttrell Part 20

that was what he was about to do. If he had not gone to Australia then, he would have been married at once. He was all but engaged. It was a case of putting off the engagement instead of the marriage. We do not believe in long, formal engagements; we do not permit them. We find them undesirable for many reasons. So, you see, he goes out to Australia as good as engaged, but unable to say so, and very young, and no doubt very susceptible. Can you wonder that I tremble for him when he has gone?

Well, he is the best son in the world, and has told me everything always. That is my comfort. But presently he tells one things in his letters which make one tremble more than ever, though he tells them jokingly. Then a cousin of Lord Dromard's stays a day or two in Melbourne and comes home with a report----"

Christina's face twitched in the sunlight. "I suppose that was Captain Dromard?" she said quietly; "I never met him, but I saw him." She seemed to see him then, and that was why her face twitched. She was still staring out of the window at the yellowing sky.

"Captain Dromard had forgotten the girl's name," said the countess pointedly; "but he told me enough to make me write to my boy--I nearly cabled! And do you think I was wrong?"

"Not from your point of view, Lady Dromard," answered Christina judicially, with her eyes half closed in the slanting sunbeams which she chose to face. "Certainly you cannot have had very much faith in Lord Manister's judgment; but the case is altered if he was to all intents and purposes engaged to a girl in England; and, at all events, that's the worst that could be said of you--looking at it from your own point of view. But is not the girl out there ent.i.tled to a point of view as well?" And the hardened reckless eyes were turned so suddenly upon Lady Dromard that the youth and grace and bitterness of the girl smote her straight to the heart.

There was a slight tremor and great tenderness in the voice that whispered, "Did she feel it very much? Come, come--don't tell me it broke her heart!"

"No, I won't tell you that," said the girl briskly, but with a laugh which hurt. "That doesn't break so easily in these days. No, it didn't break her heart, Lady Dromard--it did much worse. It got her talked about. It poisoned her mind, it killed her faith, it spoilt her temper.

It did all that--and one thing worse still. Though it didn't _break_ her heart, Lady Dromard, it cracked it, so that it will never ring true any more; it made her hate those she had loved--those who loved her; it made it impossible for her ever to care for anybody in the whole wide world again!"

Lady Dromard had drawn her chair nearer to the girl, and nearer still.

Lady Dromard was no longer mistress of herself.

"Did it make her hate _you_, my dear?"

"It made her loathe--me."

Lady Dromard was seen to battle with a strong womanly impulse, and to lose. Her fine eyes filled with tears. Her soft, white hands flew out to Christina's, and drew them to her bosom. At this moment a young man in flannels appeared at the door, and the young man was Lord Manister; but the rich carpet had m.u.f.fled his tread, and the two women had eyes for one another only--the girl he had loved--the mother who had drawn him from her. The same sunbeam washed them both.

"Now I know her name--now I know it!"

"I think you cannot have found it out this minute, Lady Dromard."

"But I have. I have never known whether to believe it or not, since it first crossed my mind, the night you dined here. You see, I know him so well! But he didn't tell me, and after all I had no reason to suppose it. Oh, he has told me nothing--and you are the gulf between us, for which I have only myself to thank. Ah, if I had only dreamt--of you!"

Tiny suffered herself to be kissed upon the cheek.

"Pray say no more, dear Lady Dromard," she said quietly. "Shall I tell you why?" she added, drawing back. "Why, because it's quite a thing of the past."

"It is not a thing of the past," cried Lady Dromard pa.s.sionately. "He has never loved anyone else. He bitterly regrets having listened to me, and I, now that I know you--I bitterly regret everything! And he loves you ... and I would rather ... and I have told him what is the simple truth--how I have admired you from the first!"

The last sentence was doubtless a mistake. It was the only one that would let itself be uttered, however, and before another could be added by either woman Lord Manister had tramped into the room. They fell the further apart as he came between them and stooped down, laying his hands heavily on the little table. His eyes sped from the girl to his mother, and back to the girl, on whom they stayed. One hand held his crumpled cap. His hair was disordered. In many ways he looked at his best, as Tiny had always said he did in flannels. But never before had Tiny seen him half so earnest and sad and handsome.

"My mother is right," he said firmly. "I love you, and I ask you to forgive us both, and to give me what I don't deserve--one word of hope!"

The young girl glanced from his grave, humble face to that of his mother, through whose tears a smile was breaking. Lady Dromard's lips were parted, half in surprise at the humility of her son's words, half in eagerness for the answer to them. Tiny Luttrell read her like a printed book, and rose to her feet with a smile that was equally unmistakable, for it was a smile of triumph.

CHAPTER XIII.

HER HOUR OF TRIUMPH.

Now Herbert was taking part in the match, and Ruth was in the ladies'

tent, trying not to think of Christina, who was playing a single-wicket game in another place. But Erskine Holland was rolling the rectory court gloomily and quite alone, and he was tired of Essingham. Not only had the day kept fine in spite of its threats, but toward the end of the afternoon it turned out very fine indeed, and the light became excellent for lawn tennis, because there was n.o.body to play with poor Erskine.

Even the good Willoughby was on the accursed field over yonder; and he mattered least. Ruth was there. Tiny was there. Herbert was not only there, but playing for Lord Manister, who was notoriously short of men.

One can hardly wonder at Erskine's condemnation of his brother-in-law, out of his own mouth, as a stultified young fraud in the matter of Lord Manister. As to the girls, some old tenets of his concerning women in general returned to taunt him for the s.h.i.+p-wreck of his holiday at least. Yet Ruth had but plotted for her sister's advancement, not her own. Whether Christina cared in the least for the man whom she evidently meant to marry, if she could, was, after all, Christina's own affair.

Erskine had only heard her disparage him behind his back--at which Herbert himself could not beat her--whereas Ruth had at least been openly in favor of the fellow from the very first. But if Herbert was a fraud, what was the name for Tiny? Clearly the only trustworthy person of the three was Ruth, who at least--yet alone--was consistent.

To this conclusion, which was not without its pleasing side, Erskine came with his eyes on the ground he was rolling. But as he pushed the roller toward the low stone wall dividing the lawn from the churchyard, into which the b.a.l.l.s were too often hit, one came whizzing out of it for a change, and struck the roller under Erskine's nose. And leaning with her elbows on the low wall, and her right hand under her chin, as though it were the last right hand that could have flung that ball, stood the girl for whom a bad enough name had yet to be found.

"Where on earth did you spring from?" Holland asked, a little brusquely, as he stopped for a moment and then rolled on toward the wall.

"If you mean the ball," replied Tiny, "it must be the one we lost the last time we played. I have just found it among the graves, and it slipped out of my hand."

"I meant you," said Erskine, with an unsuccessful smile; and he pushed the roller close up to the wall, and folded his arms upon the handle.

"Oh, I have come from the hall by the forbidden path over Gallow Hill; but it seems that wasn't meant for us, and at any rate I have leave to use it whenever I like." She was puzzling him, and she knew it, but she met his eyes with a mysterious smile for some moments before adding: "You can't think what a view there is from the top of the hill--I mean a view of the hall. Just now the sun was blazing in all the windows, like the flash of a broadside from an old two-decker; you see it made such an impression on me that I thought of that for your benefit."

Erskine acknowledged the benefit rather heavily with a nod.

"What have you done with Ruth?"

"To the best of my belief she is watching the match; at least she was an hour ago."

"Something _has_ happened!" exclaimed Erskine Holland, starting upright and leaving the roller handle swinging in the air like an inverted pendulum. His eyes were unconsciously stern; those of the girl seemed to quail before them.

"Something has happened," she admitted to the top of the wall. "I suppose you would get to know sooner or later, so I may as well tell you myself now. The fact is Lord Manister has just proposed to me."

Erskine dropped his eyes and shrugged slightly; then he raised them to the setting sun, and tried to look resigned; then, with a noticeable effort, he brought them back to her face, and forced a smile.

"I'm not surprised. I saw it coming, though I hardly expected it so soon. Well, Tiny, I congratulate you! He is about the most brilliant match in England."

"Quite the most, I thought?"

"And I am sure he is a first-rate fellow," added Erskine with vigor, regretting that he had not said this first, and disliking what he had said.

"Oh, he is a very good sort," acknowledged Tiny to the wall.

"So you ought to be the happiest young woman in the world, as you are perhaps the luckiest--I mean in one sense. And I congratulate you, Tiny, I do indeed!"

To clinch his congratulations he held out his hand, from which she raised her eyes to him at last--with the look of a cabman refusing his proper fare.

"And I took you for the most discerning person I knew!" said Tiny very slowly.

"You don't mean to say----"

His eagerness and incredulity arrested his speech.

"I _do_ mean to say."

"That you have--refused him?"

Tiny nodded. "With thanks--not too many."