Tiny Luttrell Part 27

Now he saw her meaning, and held his tongue. This was the subject on which he understood it to be her desire that they should not speak. To himself, moreover, it was a highly unattractive topic, and he was thoroughly glad to have it ignored as it had been; but if she alluded to the matter herself that was another thing, and he must say something.

So he said:

"Is it really so certain, Tiny?"

"On my part absolutely. I'm only climbing down!"

Erskine was reminded of the pleasant things he had thought of saying to her at Cintra; they had been by him so long that he found himself saying them now as though he meant every word.

"My congratulations must keep till the proper time; but when that comes they may surprise you. My dear girl, I should like you to understand that you're not the only person whose opinion has changed since we were at Essingham. If I may say so at this stage of the proceedings, and if it is any satisfaction to you to hear it, I for one am going to be very glad about this thing, I think him such a first-rate fellow, Tiny!"

For a moment Christina gazed acutely at her brother-in-law. "I wonder if that's sincere?" she said reflectively. Then her eyes hurried back to the sea.

"I think he's a very good fellow indeed," said Erskine with emphasis.

The girl gave a little laugh. "Oh, he's all that; the question is whether that's enough."

"It is, if he really loves you--as I think he must."

"Oh, if it's enough for him to be in love!"

There followed a great pause, during which the thought of pleasant things to say was thrown overboard and left far astern.

"I only hope," Erskine said at last, with an earnest ring in his voice which was new to Christina, "that you are not going to make the greatest mistake of your life!"

"I hope not also."

"Ah, don't make light of it!" he cried impetuously. "If you marry without love you'll ruin your life, I don't care who it is you marry! To marry for affection, or for esteem, or for money--they're all equally bad; there is no distinction. Take affection--for a time you might be as happy as if it were something more; but remember that any day you might see somebody that you could really love. Then you would know the difference, and it would embitter your whole existence with a quiet, private, unsuspected bitterness, of which you can have no conception.

And so much the worse if you have married somebody who is honestly and sufficiently fond of you. His love would cut you to the heart--because you could only pretend to return it--because your whole existence would be a living lie!"

He was extremely unlike himself. His voice trembled, and in the dying light his face was gray. These things made his words impressive, but the girl did not seem particularly impressed. Had she remembered the one previous occasion when a similar conversation had taken place between them, the strangeness of his manner must have been driven home to her by contrast; but the contrast was a double one, and her own share in it kept her from thinking of the time when she had been serious and he had not, and now, when he was more serious than she had ever known him, she met him with a frivolous laugh.

"Well, really, Erskine, I've never heard you so terribly in earnest before! I think I had better not tell Ruth what you have said; my dear man, you speak as though you'd been there!"

It was some time before he laughed.

"If only you yourself would be more in earnest, Tiny! You may say this comes badly from me. I know there has been more jest than earnest between me and you. But if I was never serious in my life before I am now, and I want you, too, to take yourself seriously for once. You see, Tiny, I am not only an old married man by this time, but I am your European parent as well. I am ent.i.tled to play the heavy father, and to give you a lecture when I think you need one. My dear child, I have been in the world about twice as long as you have, and I know men and have heard of women who have poisoned their whole lives by marrying with love on the other side only; and the greater their worldly goods, the greater has been their misery! And rather than see you do as they have done----"

The sentence snapped. "You shan't do it!" he exclaimed sharply. "You're far too good to spoil yourself as others have done and are doing every day."

"Who told you I was good?" inquired Christina, with a touch of the coquetry which even with him she could not entirely repress. "You never had it from me, most certainly. Let me tell you, Erskine, that I'm bad--bad--bad! And if I haven't shocked you sufficiently already it is evidently time that I did; so you'll please to understand that if I marry Lord Manister it is partly because I think I owe it to him; otherwise it's for the main chance purely. And I think it's very unkind of you to make me confess all this," she added fretfully. "I never meant to speak to you about it at all. Only I can't bear you to think me better than I am."

Erskine shook his head sadly.

"At least you have a better side than this, Tiny--this is not you at all! You love and admire all that is honest and n.o.ble, and fresh and free; you should give that love and admiration a chance. But I'm not going to say any more to worry you. If you really, with your eyes open, are going to marry a man whom you do not love, I can only tell you that you will be doing at best a very cynical thing. And yet--I can understand it." This he added more to himself than to the girl.

He was turning away, but she laid a restraining hand upon his arm.

"Don't go," she exclaimed impulsively. "I can't let you go when--when you understand me better than anyone else ever did--and when I am never, never going to speak to you like this again."

"If only I could help you!"

"You cannot!" Tiny cried out. "I'm too far gone to be helped. I feel hopelessly bad and hard, and n.o.body can mend that. But if there's one grain of goodness in my composition that wasn't there when I came over to England, you may know, Erskine, if you care to know it, that it's you, and you alone, who have put it there!"

"Nonsense," he said; "what good have I done you?"

"You have talked sense to me, as only one other man ever did--and he wasn't as clever as you are. You've given me books to read, and they're the first good books I ever read in my life; you have dug a sort of oyster knife into my miserable ignorance! You have been a real good pal to me, Erskine, and you must never turn your back on me, whatever I do.

I know you never will. I believe in you as I believe in very few people on this footstool; but there's one thing you can do for me now that will be even kinder than anything that you have ever done yet."

"There's nothing that I wouldn't do for you, Tiny," said Erskine tenderly. "What is it?"

The corners of her mouth twitched--her eyes twinkled.

"It's not to say another serious word to me this month! I know I began it this time; I won't do so again. I'm trying to be happy in my own way, if you'll only let me. I'm trying to make the most of my time. When I'm really engaged I shall need all the help and advice you can give me; for I mean to be very good to him, Erskine; I do indeed! Then of course I shall need to cultivate the finest manners; but until it actually comes off I'm trying to forget about it--don't you see? I'm doing my level best to forget!"

What Erskine saw was the tears in her eyes, but he saw them only for an instant; instead of his leaving Christina on the deck it was she who left him; and there he stood, between the high seas and the gathering shades of night, until both were black.

It was their last conversation of the kind.

One more night was spent at sea; the next they were all back in Kensington. Here they were greeted with a pleasant surprise: Herbert was in the house to meet them. Cambridge seemed already to have done him good; he was singularly polite and subdued, though a little uncommunicative. They, however, had much to tell him, so this was not noticed immediately. His sisters supposed that he was in London for the night only, as he said he had come down from Cambridge that day. It was not until later that they knew that he had been sent down. Erskine broke the news to them.

"I'm afraid," he added, "that they've sent him down for good and all.

The fact is, Ruth, your fears have been realized. He has done his best to fill another eye; and this time the proctor's! He says he shall go back to Melbourne immediately."

"Never!" cried Ruth; and she went straight to her brother, who was smoking viciously in another room.

"Yes, by ghost!" drawled Herbert through his hooked nose. "I'm going to clear out. I'm full up of England, Ruth, and I guess England's full up of me. The best thing I can do is to go back, and turn boundary rider or whim driver. That's about all I'm fit for, and it's what I'm going to do. The _Ballaarat_ sails on the 2d--I've been to the office and taken my berth already. My oath, I drove there straight from Liverpool Street this afternoon!"

Nor was there any moving him from his purpose, though Ruth tried for half an hour there and then. Twice that time Herbert spent afterward in Tiny's room; but it was not known whether Tiny also had attempted to dissuade him. When he left her the girl stood for five minutes with a foot on the fender and an elbow on the mantelpiece. Then she sought Ruth in haste.

Ruth had just gone upstairs. Erskine was surprised to see her back in his study almost immediately, and startled by her mode of entrance, which suggested sudden illness in the house.

"What in the world has happened?" he said, sitting upright in his chair.

"Happened?" cried Ruth bitterly. "It is the last straw! I give her up. I wash my hands of her. I wish she had never come over!"

"Tiny? Why, what has she been doing now?"

"It isn't what she has been doing--it is what she says she's going to do. You may be able to bring her to reason, but I never shall. I won't try--I wash my hands of her. I will say no more to her. But it is simply disgraceful! She is far worse than Herbert!"

"Has she unmade her mind," Holland asked eagerly.

"No, no, no! But worse, I call it. O Erskine, if you knew what she says----"

"I am waiting to hear."

"You'll never guess!"

"No, I give it up."