CHAPTER II.

MR. CHARTERIS.

I hoped all the next day that Charlie would come, but he didn’t. My rough speech had hurt his feelings too much, and I heard afterwards that he wandered about the country in a melancholy mood, from sunrise to sunset, making fierce resolutions to return home by the very next opportunity, which, of course, never came to anything.

I sat indoors all the morning,inditing my letter to Mr. Warrington, in which I told him exactly what had occurred, and begged him to let me have the management of my money in my own hands. I gave him a most faithful account of torn dresses, worn-out gloves, and shabby bonnets, and assured him that the very stamp I used to convey my wishes to him, I should not have been able to procure, had I not found a few centimes lying on the mantelpiece in the _salle à manger_, and annexed them boldly, under Mr. Lovett’s own eyes.

Having finished my epistle I put it in my pocket, ready for the post, and went downstairs to join the girls. As I passed through the kitchen, I saw Madame Marmoret leaning her two elbows on the open window-sill, whilst she talked with the same tradesman, in the peaked cap and the belted blue blouse, who had drawn my trustee aside for a private conference as he was conducting me from the diligence to the house, on the occasion of my arrival in St. Pucelle.

‘_Tiens_, m’sieu!’ she was saying in a friendly and confidential tone, as I placed my foot on the top step of the stairs. ‘You are not worse off than I am: we must wait, wait, wait! There is no other chance for us. The time cannot be far off now. Sooner or later it must come.’

‘But what will there be for us when it _does_ come?’ grumbled the man; ‘that is the question, Madame! I heard a great deal of this demoiselle Anglaise and all the money she was to bring with her, but where is it? I should like to see some in my hand, were it ever so little.’

‘Bah! you are a fool to have believed the old man. You know him of old. What would he not say to silence your importunities? The demoiselle Anglaise has nothing—next to nothing! She is a pauper, _une avare_, and close-fisted as a German; and the sooner she goes back to her own country, I say, the better! We shall make nothing out of her.’

This was a pleasant speech to overhear made of myself by an insolent old woman who chose to resent her master’s impecuniosity upon me. But I resolved Madame should know that I _had_ overheard it, and stamped my foot in consequence.

‘_Tiens!_ there is some one,’ exclaimed the man, drawing backwards.

Madame turned her brown face with its wicked-looking eyes towards me without altering the position of her elbows on the window-sill.

‘_Eh bien_, mamselle!’ she said, without the slightest appearance of confusion. ‘You have a light foot! I hope your heart corresponds to it!’

‘Thank you, Madame!’ I replied, in the same manner. ‘I have a light step I believe, and a quick ear, and a retentive memory. You will never find me forget one compliment you are kind enough to pay me!’

‘That is well,’ she laughed, as though she took my words in perfect good faith, ‘for I am very poor, you see, and any little remembrance mamselle sees fit to bestow upon me will be gratefully acknowledged.’

Really, this woman’s insolence was past bearing! That, and the conversation I had overheard, which so plainly betrayed what use my arrival at St. Pucelle had been put to, made my cheeks flame with indignation, and I walked past her to the sitting-room with the air of a queen. I had expected to find Tessie and Ange there, engaged in needlework, but I was mistaken. Except for Cave Charteris, sitting in the window reading a French novel, the room was empty.

I have already attempted to describe the terms on which I found myself with this gentleman, but they are not easy of portraiture. We were perfectly friendly and polite to one another, but he was already more intimate and confidential with the girls than with myself. The new acquaintanceship appeared to be terribly kept back by the remembrance of the old friendship, and the mutual fear we secretly entertained, lest a free intercourse might lead to some allusion to the past, deterred us from ever seeking the company of one another.

Confidence was at an end between us, and ease had followed it. I liked him still—thought him very handsome—and wished him no evil, but there my interest ended. The advice which I had sought from Charlie Sandilands, and which could have been so much better accorded me by a man of thirty, I had never dreamed of asking at the hands of Cave Charteris. I should have left the room again now, not directly I perceived he was in it, but at the first reasonable opportunity, had he not deterred me by broaching the very subject that had set my face in a flame.

‘There appears to be a very animated conversation going on in the kitchen, Miss Marsh,’ he commenced. ‘Is anything wrong there?’

‘Nothing worse than the tongue of Madame Marmoret, which is a continual scourge,’ I answered hotly. ‘The impertinence of that woman knows no bounds. How the Lovetts can endure it as they do, I can’t imagine; but for my own part I shall be compelled to make a formal complaint on the subject, if it is not put a stop to. I have not been accustomed to be insulted by servants, and I will not submit to it.’

‘Has she dared to insult you?’ he asked quickly.

Then I remembered the exact bearing of the affront I had overheard, and wished I had not mentioned it. Of all people in the world, I would not have told Mr. Charteris my money troubles. He might have offered to assist me out of them.

‘I overheard part of the conversation you have alluded to, and it was not complimentary to myself. Madame Marmoret hates me and says so openly, though I am not aware I have ever given her cause of offence. It is nothing to me what she thinks or does not think, but I will not suffer it to be bawled out of a kitchen window loud enough for the whole of St. Pucelle to hear.’

‘I should think not, indeed! You should speak to Mr. Lovett about it. Hilda, are you happy here?’

I started. It was the first time he had called me by my Christian name since the moment he recognised me in the _salle à manger_.

‘Yes,’ I answered quietly. ‘I am quite happy, thank you.’

‘I do not know, of course, anything of your private affairs, neither have I the right to ask, but I don’t consider things are as comfortable here as they ought to be. I am only on a shooting excursion myself, and prepared to live “in the rough,” but even I could wish for a few more of the luxuries of civilisation. Mr. Lovett calls you his adopted daughter, still——’

‘I am not his adopted daughter,’ I interrupted quickly, ‘nor have I any desire to be so. I do not know what motive he has in saying it. I pay for my board and lodging here, just as you do. Mr. Lovett offered me the home, after my mother’s death, and I accepted it, for the sake of rest and quiet. But I do not at all know how long I shall remain with them.’

‘Is it so? The old gentleman made me understand quite differently. But I am very glad to hear you are independent, Hilda. Forgive me for being so bold as to say so; but I know of old what a proud spirit you have, and can imagine nothing more galling to you than to eat the bread of charity.’

‘Nothing would have induced me to do so. I would have scrubbed floors first.’

‘I am sure of it. Neither does our reverend friend appear to me to be in a position to extend hospitality to his friends. I have been assailed more than once since my sojourn here, by people entreating me to use my influence with him to make him pay what he owes them.’

‘Have you really, Mr. Charteris!’

This was a subject on which I felt I _could_ speak with him—on which, too, he might give me some valuable advice.

‘Oh, it is no secret! The old man is in debt all over this town and a dozen others. I knew that before I had been here a week. But it is no concern of ours. All we have to do is to pay our way as long as it suits our convenience, and to leave him when it ceases to do so. But the old sinner has contrived to book me for the next two months, anyway!’

‘How so?’ I demanded, with interest.

‘Why, the second or third day I was here—before I knew all this, you know—he asked me, as a great favour, to advance him fifty pounds—for something that he wanted on _your_ account, I believe.’

‘On _my_ account!’ I cried, flaring up. ‘How _dared_ he? Oh, Mr. Charteris, I hope you will believe this is perfect news to me! I owe Mr. Lovett nothing. He is my trustee, and has all my money in his own hands. It was shameful of him to use my name in the matter!’

‘Now, don’t agitate yourself in that fashion. I knew at once it was a ruse of the old boy’s, but it was not my business to say so, and it made no difference to me if he had the money in advance or not.’

‘And you paid him fifty pounds for two months’ board!’ I said incredulously.

‘Something like it. I believe the agreement was that I should pay five pounds a week.’

At this I could not help laughing.

‘You must be very rich to be able to afford to throw your money away in that way.’

‘I am not poor,’ he answered slowly; and I wondered where his money had come from.

He had not been independent in the old days—far from it; for he had often talked to me of the necessity of his working to provide a home before he could take a wife to himself. Perhaps his father had died in the silent interim that stretched between the present and the past. Before I quite knew what I was about, I had asked the question:

‘Is your father alive still?’

‘Yes. Why do you ask?’

‘I don’t know. Merely for the sake of talking, I suppose. I am not above that womanly weakness.’

‘I have thought, since I have been here, that you had got altogether above it. It seems as if I had hardly heard your voice: you are so unusually silent and reserved.’

‘I have had a great sorrow, you must remember, Mr. Charteris, and I cannot yet laugh and talk as I used to do.’

‘Ah, how you used to laugh in the old days! I fancy I can hear you now! Hilda, do you ever think of that time, and of the hours we spent wandering up and down the Crystal Palace Gardens together? How beautiful those gardens were! They have nothing like them abroad, unless we except the grounds at Versailles, after which, I believe, they were modelled.’

We were getting on dangerous ground now, and I felt it. I had no desire to renew anything like a sentimental flirtation with Mr. Charteris; the scar, which his past conduct had left upon my heart, though now painless, was too deep for trifling even with memory; and therefore I did my best to turn the conversation.

‘Ah, Versailles! I have never seen those gardens, though I have heard so much about them. I am a great ignoramus, Mr. Charteris, you must know, in all things connected with travel. This is actually the first time I have ever set my foot out of England!’

‘So much the better! You have all your pleasure to come, instead of having exhausted before you know how to appreciate it. I can well imagine how an intelligent mind like yours will expand beneath the wonders of nature and art with which it has still to become acquainted. You are marvellously young and fresh for your age, Hilda.’

‘You are the first person who has ever said so. I think, on the contrary, that I am marvellously old and used-up. To judge from my general feelings, I might be sixty.’

‘Just at present I dare say you might. You must have felt your late loss terribly!’

My lip trembled, and I turned away from him. I could not have answered even ‘Yes’ at that moment without breaking down, and I would have died sooner than break down before Cave Charteris.

‘I can’t tell you what a shock it was to me to hear it!’ he went on softly. ‘It seemed to revive the past, and bring it back as if it had occurred only yesterday. She was always good and kind to me, and you too, Hilda—indeed, I used to dare to think at that time that you regarded me as a _very dear_ friend.’

_He used to dare to think!_ He cast his calculating untrue eyes upon me as he spoke; and I knew that he remembered as vividly as I did, and was only trying how far he could impose on my credulity and make me think him blameless. The idea nerved me for action. Had I followed the bent of my inclinations, I should have hurled indignant reproaches on his head, and made him, in consequence, believe that his conduct had still the power to pain me. But I stamped on my inclination, and answered him as coolly as if the subject were of the utmost indifference, and revived no recollections whatever, pleasant or unpleasant, with regard to himself.

‘And so I did,’ I replied. ‘I had so few companions of my own age at Norwood, I remember hailing your advent as a perfect godsend. It was a very dull place for a girl to live in, particularly in the quiet way we used to do.’

‘I never thought it dull,’ he sighed—‘that is, when I was with you.’

‘Oh, you forget! It happened such a long time ago! But I can remember some very dull afternoons we spent there, when the roads were all mud and it rained continuously, and we had no resource indoors except playing at cards and singing over those eternal old songs of mine.’

‘You never sing now,’ he said eagerly. ‘How charmed I should be to hear some of the dear old songs! Won’t you sing them to me, Hilda?’

‘No, I never sing now, Mr. Charteris. My voice is not strong, and I have too many other things to do.’

‘You might sing for _me_ though, just to revive that happy memory. I suppose the _reality_ will never come over again, will it?’

I looked in his face with well-feigned surprise.

‘How can what is past come over again? and with my dear mother gone, too! I think you are talking nonsense, Mr. Charteris.’

‘You must know what I mean. Will the old feelings we had for each other never be revived?’

I knew as well as he did what he meant. He wanted to make love to me again—to make me believe once more that his soft tones and looks and words were good for what they seemed. But the spell was broken, the old glamour had faded away. I saw him as the world saw him, and I was not to be taken in a second time.

‘I don’t see that they want reviving, Mr. Charteris. We liked each other very well then, and I suppose we like each other very well now. We haven’t quarrelled, have we? Perhaps I am a graver woman than you expected to see; but five years is a long interval, you know: and it is more likely you have forgotten what I was, than that I have altered as much as you seem to suppose.’

‘You don’t see it in the same light as I do,’ he said, with a deep sigh that he pumped up from the lowest depths of his waistcoat.

He wanted me to blush and look conscious and uncomfortable, and then he would have seized the opportunity to swear he had been loving me through all the period of our separation, and should be miserable until he heard that I loved him in return.

But with all his desire to get up a small excitement, wherewith to while away the hours when he could not be shooting in the forest of Piron, Mr. Charteris was not so foolish as to commit himself where there appeared no chance of remunerating his trouble; and so he gave me up as a bad job, and, with a gesture of impatience, resumed the study of his French novel. But I would not leave one stone unturned by which I thought to convince him that he was utterly mistaken in thinking I had ever given a second thought to his heartless desertion of me.

‘How is your cousin Fred Stephenson, Mr. Charteris?’ I asked, with a jaunty air.

‘Oh, he’s well enough,’ he replied sulkily.

‘I thought you were going to ask him over here for a day. I wish you would—I should like to see him again. He seemed such a nice pleasant boy. I took quite a fancy to him.’

‘And I suppose you are afraid, if you don’t see him soon, that your fancy will evaporate. It is “out of sight, out of mind” with you, Miss Marsh, like the generality of women.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t have me in the minority, would you? I always stick up for my sex, and have no desire to fare better than the rest of them. Since I am a woman, I’ll be one all over. I don’t like half and half animals.’

‘You need have no fear of being mistaken for anything else, Miss Marsh. You have all the sex’s attributes strongly marked upon you, even to asserting the right to change your mind as often as you choose.’

‘I am so glad!’ I said gleefully. ‘I like to claim my privileges, and a masculine woman never gets any. But what has all this to do with your cousin Fred Stephenson?’

‘Why, that as you have taken a fancy to him, I don’t think I shall ask him over here. I am a sort of guardian of his whilst abroad, and he is of a susceptible age when the heart is more readily affected by unkindness and neglect than at any other.’

‘And you think I shall be unkind to the boy.’

‘I think you will be too kind, and then you will forget all about him. Some carroty-haired creature will come in the way’—this was a hit at poor Charlie Sandilands, whose hair, _en passant_, was not a bit more carroty than his own—‘and then Fred will be forgotten and left out in the cold, and will be as little able, perhaps, to read the meaning of the riddle as some other of your friends have been who have suffered a similar neglect at your fair hands.’

This was very pretty fencing, but I felt I must put a stop to it. It was becoming ridiculous to me, which was proof sufficient how entirely it had lost its sting.

‘Look here, Mr. Charteris,’ I said decidedly, ‘you can do as you like with regard to your cousin, but I wish you would not talk such nonsense to me. I have never left anybody out in the cold. If you are alluding to yourself, all I can say is that I feel for you exactly what I did before’—I was really obliged to make a little reservation here, and whisper inwardly ‘before you spoke to me to-day’—‘we were always excellent friends in my dear mother’s lifetime, and I have no wish to be less to you now. But it is hardly reasonable to suppose that during a separation of five years our tastes may not have grown a little apart. I don’t say they have, but meeting as we have done is really like making a fresh acquaintance, and the old ground has to be gone over again. I wish you would believe, however, that I have none but kindly feelings towards you—why should I have?—and am quite ready to be as good friends as you are.’

I did it very well, I think, because the only effect my communication had was to turn him still more sulky. ‘Pray don’t make any apologies,’ he replied, without looking up from his book; ‘I perfectly understand all you would say, and I think I perfectly understand you into the bargain.’

He was going to be rude now. Cave Charteris was the sort of man who becomes rude directly his self-love is wounded, and that is what I have never put up with from any one. So I gathered my work together, and walked out of the room with dignity, and did not return to it again until the sound of the girls’ voices assured me that I should not be left alone with Mr. Charteris.

[Illustration: [Fleuron]]