The Hoyden by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (first ebook reader .txt) 📕

is distinctly becoming, and looks more like a Queen Anne patch than anything else.

All the men rise as she enters, except Rylton, who is reading a letter of such deep importance, evidently, that he seems hardly to note his wife's entrance. Tita beckons to them all to resume their seats.

"I'm dreadfully sorry--dreadfully," says she, in a quick little way. "I had no idea it was so late. So _good_ of you," turning to Mrs. Bethune, who is sitting at the head of the table, "to take my place! You see," looking once again round her, "when I started I did not mean to go so far."

"Ah! that is what so often happens," says Mrs. Bethune, with a queer little glance from under her lids.

There is something so insolent both in her meaning and her voice, that Margaret's face flushes, and she makes a slight movement as if to rise; but Colonel Neilson, who is next her, by a slight gesture restrains her. She looks at Maurice, however, as if wondering why he does not interfere--does not _say_ something; but Maurice seems more than ever buried in his letter. Indeed, beyond one brief glance at his wife, he has taken no notice of her.

Margaret's eyes go back to Tita. Everyone is offering her a seat here or there, and she is shaking her head in refusal. Evidently Mrs. Bethune's remark has gone by her, like the wind unheard; it had not been understood.

"Come and sit here, and have a hot cup of coffee," says Captain Marryatt.

"No, thank you. I couldn't really. See how muddy I am," glancing down at her skirt. "It must have rained a great deal last night. Tom and I ran a race, and this is the result. I must go upstairs and change my things."

"Certainly, a change would be desirable in many ways," says old Miss Gower, in her most conscious tone, on which her nephew, who is helping himself to cold pie on the sideboard, turns and looks at her as if he would like to rend her.

"Yes, run away, Tita; I'll be up with you in a moment," says Margaret gently, fondly. "I am afraid you must feel very damp."

"I feel very uncomfortable, any way," says Tita, though without _arrière pensée_. Mrs. Chichester, dropping her handkerchief, gets her laugh over before she picks it up again. Tita moves towards the door, and then looks back. "Maurice," says she, with a courage born of defiance, "will you send me up some breakfast to my room?"

Sir Maurice turns at once to the butler.

"See that breakfast is sent up to Lady Rylton," says he calmly.

A faint colour rises to Tita's forehead. She goes straight to the door. Randal Gower, who is still at the sideboard, hurries to open it for her.

"There's a regular ta-ra-ra waiting for _you,"_ says he, "in the near bimeby."

Tita gives him an indignant glance as she goes by, which that youth accepts with a beaming smile.

Tita has hardly been in her room twenty minutes, has hardly, indeed, had time to change her clothes, when Margaret knocks at the door.

"May I come in?" asks she.

"Oh! come in. Come in!" cries Tita, who has just dismissed her maid. She runs to Margaret and kisses her on both cheeks. "Good-morning," says she. And then saucily, "You have come to read me a lecture?"

"No. No, indeed," replies Margaret earnestly. She _had _perhaps, but the sight of the child's small, pretty, entreating face has done away with everything condemnatory that was in her mind. Still, there is such a thing as a word in season. "But, Tita dearest," says she, "is it wise, the way you are going on?"

"Ah! I knew I should not escape," says Tita whimsically.

"I am not going to scold you, really," says Margaret, smiling; "but consider, dear child! To begin with----"

"Oh, this is _worse_ than I thought," interrupts Tita, covering her face with her hands, and blinking at her through her fingers. "Is it going to be firstly, secondly, thirdly? Come to the thirdly at once."

"Do you know what you want?" says Margaret, who feels fonder of her every moment. "A good _slap!_ I shall deliver it some day. But, seriously now, Tita, you ought to have considered your guests, at all events. If you had stayed in your room it would have been nothing--but----"

"But because I stayed in the open air it was _something!" _Tita bursts out laughing. "Oh, isn't it funny?" says she. "It would have been all right if I had had a bad headache. _Either_ way they wouldn't have seen me at breakfast, and what it amounts to is, that they are very angry because I hadn't a bad headache."

"No one is angry at all."

"No one?"

"Except Maurice, and surely he has some right on his side. You know your conduct was a little--just a little--er----"

"Rude," says Tita, helping her out. "Well, I know that, and I am sorry to my heart's core, Margaret, if I was rude--_to you!"_

The climax is very sweet. Margaret tells herself that Tita is too much for her. The girl by this time has her arms round her neck.

"Don't mind me," says Margaret, holding the little form closely to her. "Think of yourself, my dearest. As if _I_ should misunderstand you! But you should study conventionality a little; you should----"

She breaks off; it almost seems to her that she is preaching deception to this baby.

"Now, I'll tell you," says Tita, leaning back a little from her, and pointing each word by a tap on her shoulder, "I'm not so bad as I _seem!_ I really _meant_ to be in, in time for breakfast--but Tom----"

"Tom," impatiently, "is a bad adviser!"

"It wasn't his fault, any way. The fact is, I took it into my head to run a race with him. He is always lauding that old horse of his, you know----"

"I don't know. All I do know is, that Mr. Hescott must have had a watch about him."

"Well," triumphantly, "he hadn't. So you don't know anything after all, you darling old Madge! He had forgotten it. He had left it at home! That was just what put us out! Not that I _care_. Well, I was going to tell you about our race. We started for Clumber's Hill--to get there and back again, and all went well until my mare ran away with me!"

"Ran away----"

"Don't look like that. I _love_ a horse to run away with me; and there were no sandpits or precipices of any sort; it was a real _good _run away. Oh!" throwing out her arms, "how I enjoyed it!" She pauses. "But I don't think Tom did. He was like an egg when he came up with me. _So_ white!"

"Never mind Mr. Hescott, go on."

"Well, that's all. By the time I had the mare well in hand again, we were a good many miles farther from here than we meant to be, and, of course, I was late." She puts Margaret away from her a little, and looks at her. "After all," says she, "why should Maurice be so angry about it? Everyone makes mistakes now and then. I suppose," lightly, "even the immaculate Maurice can make his?"

"No doubt," says Margaret, in a low tone.

Is he not making a mistake now--a dreadful one?

"And, for the matter of that, so can _you,"_ says Tita audaciously, but so lovingly that no one could be angry with her.

"Don't waste time over me," says Margaret, growing very red, but laughing. "Come back to your naughty little self. Now what are you going to do about this, Tita?"

"Do?"

"Yes. Couldn't you go down and say something pretty to Maurice?"

"Go down--to Maurice? Go and beg his pardon. Is _that_ what you mean? No, thank you!"

"But, my dear, he is your husband?"

"Is that all?" Tita tilts her chin airily. "One would think I was his daughter, the way you speak, or his slave! No. I shan't apologize to him, Margaret, is that is what you mean. I'm _hanged_ if I do!"

"Tita--my dear!" Margaret looks shocked. "I don't think you ought to use such expressions. You make me very unhappy when you do."

"Do I?" Tita gives her a little sidelong glance, meant to be contrite, but too full of mischief to be anything but incorrigible. "Then _I'm hanged_ if I say it again," says she.

"Tita, you will come to grief yet," says Margaret, laughing in spite of herself. "Now to return to our argument. I tell you, you owe Maurice something for this escapade of yours, innocent as it is. Fancy in what an awkward position you placed him with your guests! A man doesn't like to feel awkward; and he is, naturally, a little annoyed with you about it. And----"

"Nonsense!" says Tita; "the guests have nothing to do with it! As if I didn't know! Maurice is just in a bad temper because I have been riding with Tom. He hates poor old Tom. If I had gone riding with Randal or any of the others, and hadn't been in till _luncheon_, he would have said nothing--he would have treated it as a joke, I dare say."

"Well--but, Tita, is there nothing in his objection to Mr. Hescott? You must admit, dearest, that your cousin is a little--well, attentive to you."

"Why, of course he is attentive to me. He is quite like a brother to me."

"Brothers, as a rule, are not so very attentive to their sisters. The fact is, Tita," says Margaret desperately, "that I think--er--that Maurice thinks--that Mr. Hescott is----"

"In love with me? I know that," says Tita, without the faintest embarrassment. _"Isn't_ it absurd? Fancy Tom being in love with _me!_"

Margaret tells herself that she could fancy it very easily, but refrains from saying so.

"How do you know he isn't?" asks she slowly.

"Why, if he was, I suppose he would tell me so," says Tita, after which Miss Knollys feels that further argument would be useless.

Suddenly Tita turns to her.

"You think me entirely in the wrong," says she, "and Maurice altogether in the right. But there are things about Maurice I do not understand. Is he true or is he false? I never seem to know. I don't ask much of him--not half as much as he asks of me--and still----"

"What do you mean, Tita?" asks Margaret, a nervous feeling contracting her throat.

Has she heard, then?--does she know?

"I mean that he is unfair to me," says Tita, standing back from Margaret, her eyes lighting. "For one thing, why did he ask Mrs. Bethune to pour out tea this morning in my absence? Was there," petulantly, "no one else to ask?"

"She is his cousin."

"So are you."

"My dear, I am not married."

"More shame on you," says Tita, with the ghost of a smile. "Well, there was Miss Gower!"

"She is not married, either."

"And no shame to anyone." Here Tita, in spite of her wrath, cannot help laughing. "But really, Margaret, the blame should not be entirely on my side. If I have to accuse Maurice----"

"Accuse him! Of what?"

Tita looks full at her.

"You are a good friend," says she; "but his mother told me."


CHAPTER III.

HOW MR. GOWER GROWS DARKLY MYSTERIOUS; AND