Chapter 73
"I wish you would not look at it in that light: I merely cannot consent to let you break your neck. If your own mare does not please you, you can take my mount, or any other in the entire stables."
"No, thank you, I only want that one."
"But, my dear Lilian, pray be reasonable!" entreats Chetwoode, warmly, and just a trifle impatiently: "do you think I would be doing my duty by you if I sanctioned such a rash proceeding?"
"Your duty?" unpleasantly, and with a certain scornful uplifting of her small Grecian nose.
"Just so," coldly; "I am your guardian, remember."
"Oh, pray do not perpetually seek to remind me of that detestable fact,"
says Miss Chesney, vindictively; whereupon Sir Guy freezes, and subsides into dead and angry silence. Lilian, sweeping over to the darkening window, commences upon the pane a most disheartening tattoo, that makes the listener long for death. When Chetwoode can stand it no longer, he breaks the oppressive stillness.
"Perhaps you are not aware," he says, angrily, "that a noise of that description is intensely irritating."
"No. _I_ like it," retorts Miss Chesney, tattooing louder than ever.
"If you go on much longer, you will drive me out of my mind," remarks Guy, distractedly.
"Oh, don't let it come to that," calmly; "let me drive you out of the room first."
"As to my guardians.h.i.+p," says Chetwoode, in a chilling tone, "console yourself with the reflection that it cannot last forever. Time is never at a standstill, and your twenty-first birthday will restore you to freedom. You can then ride as many wild animals and kill yourself as quickly as you please, without asking any one's consent."
"I can do that now too, and probably shall. I have quite made up my mind to ride Saracen to-morrow!"
"Then the sooner you unmake that mind the better."
"Well,"--turning upon him as though fully prepared to crush him with her coming speech,--"if I don't ride him I shall stay at home altogether: there!"
"I think that will be by far the wiser plan of the two," returns he, coolly.
"What! and lose all my day!" cries Lilian, overwhelmed by the atrocity of this remark, "while you and all the others go and enjoy yourselves!
How hatefully selfish you can be! But I won't be tyrannized over in this fas.h.i.+on. I shall go, and on Saracen too."
"You shall not," firmly.
Miss Chesney has come close up to where he is standing on the hearth-rug. The fire-light dances and crackles merrily, casting its rays, now yellow, now deep crimson, over their angry faces, as though drawing keen enjoyment from the deadly duel going on so near to it. One pale gleam lingers lovingly upon Lilian's sunny head, throwing over it yet another shade, if possible richer and more golden than its fellows; another lights up her white hands, rather defiantly clinched, one small foot in its high-heeled shoe that has advanced beyond her gown, and two blue eyes large with indignant astonishment.
Guy is returning her gaze with almost equal indignation, being angrily remindful of certain looks and scenes that of late have pa.s.sed between them.
"You defy me?" says Lilian, slowly.
"I do."
"You _refuse_ me?" as though not quite believing the evidence of her senses.
"I do. I forbid you to ride that one horse."
"Forbid me!" exclaims she pa.s.sionately, tears starting to her eyes. "You are fond of forbidding, as it seems to me. Recollect,
"I a.s.sure you I had never the presumption to imagine you in the latter character," he answers, haughtily, turning very pale, but speaking steadily and in a tone eminently uncomplimentary.
"Your voice says more than your words," exclaims Lilian, too angry to weigh consequences. "Am I to understand"--with an unlovely laugh--"you think me unworthy to fill so exalted a position?"
"As you press me for the truth," says Chetwoode, who has lost his temper completely, "I confess I should hardly care to live out my life with such a----"
"Yes, go on; 'with such a--' shrew, is it? or perhaps virago?"
"As you wish it," with a contemptuous shrug; "either will suit, but I was going to say 'flirt.'"
"Were you?" cries she, tears of mortification and rage dimming her eyes, all the spoiled child within her rising in arms. "Flirt, am I? and shrew? Well, I will not have the name of it without the gain of it. I hate you, hate you, _hate_ you!"
With the last word she raises her hand suddenly and administers to him a sound and wholesome box upon the ear.
The effect is electric. Sir Guy starts back as though stunned. Never in all his life has he been so utterly taken aback, routed with such deadly slaughter. The dark, hot color flames into his cheeks. Shame for her--a sort of horror that she should have been guilty of such an act--overpowers him. Involuntarily he puts one hand up to the cheek her slender fingers, now hanging so listlessly at her side, have wounded, while regarding her with silent amazement largely mixed with reproach.
As for Lilian, the deed once done, she would have given worlds to recall it,--that is, secretly,--but in this life, unfortunately, facts accomplished cannot be undone. Outwardly she is as defiant as ever, and, though extremely white, steadily and unflinchingly returns his gaze.
Yet after a little, a very little while, her eyes fall before his, her pretty, proud head droops somewhat, a small remnant of grace springs up in the very middle of all her pa.s.sion and disdain. She is frightened, nervous, contrite.
When the silence has become absolutely unbearable, Guy says, in a low tone that betrays not the faintest feeling:
"I am afraid I must have said something to annoy you terribly. I confess I lost my temper, and otherwise behaved as a gentleman should not. I beg your pardon."
His voice is that of a stranger; it is so altered she scarcely knows it.
Never in their worst disputes has he so spoken to her. With a little sickening feeling of despair and terror at her heart, she turns away and moves toward the door.
"Are you going? Pray take care. The room is very dark where the fire-light does not penetrate," says Guy, still in the same curiously changed voice, so full of quiet indifference, so replete with the cold courtesy we accord to those who are outside and beyond our affections.
He opens the door for her, and bows very slightly as she pa.s.ses through, and then closes it again calmly, while she, with weary, listless footsteps, drags herself up-stairs and throws herself upon her bed.
Lying there with dry and open eyes, not daring to think, she hardly cares to a.n.a.lyze her own feelings. She knows she is miserable, and obstinately tries to persuade herself it is because she has been thwarted in her desire to ride Saracen, but in vain. After a struggle with her better thoughts, she gives in, and acknowledges her soreness of heart arises from the conviction that she has forever disgraced herself in her guardian's eyes. She will never be able to look at him again, though in truth that need scarcely signify, as surely in the future he will not care to see where she may be looking. It is all over. He is done with her. Instinctively she understands from his altered manner how he has made up his mind never again to exercise his right over her as guardian, never again to concern himself about either her weal or her woe. She is too wretched to cry, and lies prostrate, her pulses throbbing, her brain on fire.
"What is it, my bird?" asks nurse, entering, and bending solicitously over her. "Are you not well? Does your head ache?"
"It is not my head," plaintively.
"Your side, my lamb?"
"Yes, it is my side," says Lilian, laying her hand pathetically upon her heart; and then, overcome by the weight of her own sorrows, she buries her head in her pillows and bursts into tears.
"Eh, hinny, don't cry," says nurse, fondly. "We must all have pains there at times, an' we must just learn to bear them as best we may.
Come, look up, my bairn; I will put on a good mustard blister to-night, and to-morrow I tell you it won't magnify at all," winds up nurse, fluently, who rather prides herself upon her management of the Queen's English, and would scorn to acknowledge the misplacement of a word here and there; and indeed, after all, when one comes to think of it, it does _not_ "magnify" very much.
But Lilian sobs on disconsolately. And next morning she has fresh cause to bewail her evil conduct. For the day breaks and continues through all its short life so wet, so wild, so stormy, that neither Saracen nor any other horse can leave the stables. Hunting is out of the question, and with a fresh pang, that through its severity is punishment enough for her fault, she knows all her temper of the night before was displayed for naught.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII.