Ernest Hornung - Tiny Luttrell

"Lord Manister told me he knew of Essingham. He never mentioned Mundham. Is it so very close to your rectory?"

"The grounds are; they are very big; the hall itself is miles from the gates – almost as far as our home station was from the boundary fence."

"Surely not," Tiny said quietly.

"Well, that's a little exaggeration, of course."

"Then I wish it wasn't!" Tiny cried out. "I don't relish the idea of living under the lee of such very fine people," she said next moment, as quietly as before.

"No more do I – no more does Erskine," Ruth made haste to declare. "But we enjoyed ourselves so much there last August that we said at the time that we would take the rectory again this August. We made the people promise us the refusal. And it seemed absurd to refuse just because Lord Dromard had bought Mundham; shouldn't you have said so yourself, dear?"

"Certainly I should," answered Tiny; and for half an hour no more was said.

The afternoon was wet; there was no inducement to go out, even with the necessary energy, and the two young women, on whose pillows the sun had lain before their faces, felt anything but energetic. The afternoon was also cold to Australian blood, and a fire had been lighted in Erskine's den. His favorite armchair contained several cushions and Christina – who might as well have worn his boots – while Ruth, having cut all the leaves of her volume, curled herself up on the sofa with an obvious intention. She was good at cutting the leaves of a new book, but still better at going to sleep over them when cut. She had read even less than Christina, and it troubled her less; but this afternoon she read more. Ruth could not sleep. No more could Tiny. But Tiny had not opened her book. It was one of the good books that Erskine had lent her. She was extremely interested in it; but just at present her own affairs interested her more. Lying back in the big chair, with the wet gray light behind her, and that of the fire playing fitfully over her face, Christina committed what was as yet an unusual weakness for her, by giving way voluntarily to her thoughts. She was in the habit of thinking as little as possible, because so many of her thoughts were depressing company, and beyond all things she disliked being depressed. This afternoon she was less depressed than indignant. The firelight showed her forehead strung with furrows. From time to time she turned her eyes to the sofa, as if to make sure that Ruth was still awake, and as often as they rested there they gleamed. At last she spoke Ruth's name.

"Well?" said Ruth. "I thought you were asleep; you have never stirred."

"I'm not sleepy, thanks; and, if you don't mind, I should like to speak to you before you drop off yourself."

Ruth closed her novel.

"What is it, dear? I'm listening."

"When you wrote and invited me over you mentioned Essingham as one of the attractions. Now why couldn't you tell me the Dromards would be our neighbors there?"

Ruth raised her eyes from the younger girl's face to the rain-spattered window. Tiny's tone was cold, but not so cold as Tiny's searching glance. This made Ruth uncomfortable. It did not incapacitate her, however.

"The Dromards!" she exclaimed rather well. "Had they taken the place then?"

"You say they bought it before Christmas; it was after Christmas that you first wrote and expressly invited me."

"Was it? Well, my dear, I suppose I never thought of them; that's all. They aren't the only nice people thereabouts."

"I'm afraid you are not quite frank with me," the young girl said; and her own frankness was a little painful.

"Tiny, dear, what a thing to say! What does it mean?"

Ruth employed for these words the injured tone.

"It means that you know as well as I do, Ruth, that it isn't pleasant for me to meet Lord Manister."

"Was there something between you in Melbourne?" asked Ruth. "I must say that nobody would have thought so from seeing you together last night. And – and how was I to think so, when you have never told me anything about it?"

Christina laughed bitterly.

"When you have made a fool of yourself you don't go out of your way to talk about it, even to your own people. It is kind of you to pretend to know nothing about it – I am sure you mean it kindly; but I'm still surer that you have been told all there was to tell concerning Lord Manister and me. I don't mean by Herbert. He's close. But the mother must have written and told you something; it was only natural that she should do so."

"She did tell me a little. Herbert has told me nothing. I tried to pump him, – I think you can't wonder at that, – but he refused to speak a word on the subject. He says he hates it."

"He hates Lord Manister," said Christina, smiling. "It came round to him once that Lord Manister had called him a larrikin, and he has never forgiven him. But he has been less of a larrikin ever since. And, of course, that wasn't why he was so angry with me for dancing with Lord Manister last night; he was dreadfully angry with me as we drove home; but he is a very good boy to me, and there was something in what he said."

"What made you dance with him?" Ruth said curiously.

"I was alone. I hadn't a partner. He asked me rather prettily – he always had pretty manners. You wouldn't have had me show him I cared, by snubbing him, would you?"

"No," said Ruth thoughtfully; and suddenly she slipped from the sofa, and was kneeling on the hearthrug, with her brown eyes softly searching Christina's face and her lips whispering, "Do you care, Tiny? Do you care, Tiny, dear?"

Tiny snapped her fingers as she pushed back her chair.

"Not that much for anybody – much less for Lord Manister, and least of all for myself! Now don't you be too good to me, Ruth; if you are you'll only make me feel ungrateful, and I shall run away, because I'm not going to tell you another word about what's over and done with. I can't! I have got over the whole thing, but it has been a sickener. It makes me sick to think about it. I don't want ever to speak of it again."

"I understand," said Ruth; but there was disappointment in her look and tone, and she added, "I should like to have heard the truth, though; and no one can tell it me but you."

"I thank Heaven for that!" cried Christina piously. "The version out there was that he proposed to me and I accepted him, and then he bolted without even saying good-by. It's true that he didn't say good-by; the rest is not true. But you must just make it do."

Her face was scarlet with the shame of it all; but there was no sign of weakness in the curling lips. She spoke bitterly, but not at all sadly, and her next words were still more suggestive of a wound to the vanity rather than to the heart.

"Does Erskine know?"

"Not a word."

"Honestly?"

"Quite honestly; at least I have never mentioned it to him, and I don't think anybody else has, or he would have mentioned it to me."

"Oh, Herbert wouldn't say anything. Herbert's very close. But – don't you two tell each other everything, Ruth?"

The young girl looked incredulous; the married woman smiled.

"Hardly everything, you know! Erskine has lots of relations himself, for instance, and I'm sure he wouldn't care to tell me the ins and outs of their private affairs, even if I cared to know them. It's just the same about you and your affairs, don't you see."

"Except that he knows me so well," Christina reflected aloud, with her eyes upon the fire. "If I had a husband," she added impulsively, "I should like to tell him every mortal thing, whether I wanted to or not! And I should like not to want to, but to be made. But that's because I should like above all things to be bossed!"

"You would take some bossing," suggested Ruth.

"That's the worst of it," said Christina, with a little sigh, and then a laugh, as she snatched her eyes from the fire. "But I can't tell you how glad I am you haven't told Erskine. Never tell him, Ruth, for you don't know how I covet his good opinion. I like him, you know, dear, and I rather think he likes me – so far."