Una was sitting on the terrace steps. Like her little sisters she wore a bright red frock striped with white, and a fantastically-shaped hat with a red bow in it. The costume, which was becoming to the children, had an odd bizarre effect on the tall thin girl, with her masses of hair, and her melancholy eyes. Lady Haredale sat just above her, the tea-table by her side, and a French novel on her lap. She looked the picture of lazy comfort, and a very pretty picture too, with her uncovered head, as fearless as her girls of air and light, openly reading a book which most mothers, if they studied it at all, would have blushed to let their daughters see in their hands.
Presently a telegram was brought to her, and Amethyst came running up.
“Not from Lucian, mamma?”
“Oh no, my dear child. I should like to weep a little over this bit of news. Dear old Tony has been so convenient, and I like to have a man about the house; but, as he says, it wouldn’t be right to let such a chance slip. So he’s going to marry this heiress. Ah, well, it’s a great sacrifice in some ways. – What’s that?”
A sudden piercing shriek interrupted the sweet melancholy flow of Lady Haredale’s tones. Una sprang up from the steps, threw up her arms, made a movement as if to rush away, but either fell, or flung herself down headlong, across a bed of scarlet geraniums. Tory, who had come running up to hear the news, with a watering-pot in her hand, deliberately turned, and emptied its contents on Una’s head, with the result of causing her to start up, choking with sobs, half of rage, half of misery.
“Don’t be such a fool, Una,” said Tory, sharply. “You’ve known it was coming, you’ve always known it was no use.”
Una rushed away into the house, her sobs and half-choked screams echoing as she went.
“What does it mean?” said Amethyst, appalled. “It means,” said Tory, “that Tony was always fond of kissing us and spooning us, when he was hanging about my lady. But Una has been over head and ears in love with him ever since I can remember, and he liked it and called her his little wife, and she’d sit all day in the window watching for him, or hide in the passage waiting for a kiss.”
“Oh, my dear child,” said Lady Haredale, “of course Tony was only in play.”
“Yes, but Una wasn’t. And lately he has been trying to get her out of it. That’s why she has been so miserable; only she didn’t want Amethyst to know.”
“It’s quite absurd,” said Lady Haredale, “those things should never go too far. It’s quite Una’s fault. I shall have to bring her out, when you are married, Amethyst, to put it out of her head. As if Tony cared for a chit like her!”
Victoria made an indescribable grimace, while Amethyst was speechless. Tory’s cynical plain-speaking, and her mothers light response, turned her quite cold with horror.
“Mother, you will never let that man come here again?” she exclaimed, at length. “If he could behave so – ”
“Oh, my dear child,” said Lady Haredale, “it was only play. – Poor little Una will soon forget it again. It’s just a little sentiment, that’s all.”
Amethyst turned with a start, as Lucian, for once taking her by surprise, came out of the house all eager and joyous.
“Oh, dear Lucian,” said Lady Haredale, “we are quite upset! Such a sudden piece of news.”
“There is something the matter!” said Lucian, with an anxious look at Amethyst, whose face was still scared and startled, even in the midst of his greeting.
“Oh no!” said Lady Haredale. “But our dear old friend Major Fowler is going to be married. The girls are all in tears, he is such a loss, we can’t imagine ourselves without him. I think we’ve all had a share in him, we don’t like to give him up to an heiress. I don’t know what we shall do.”
Amethyst made no contradiction, but she looked at her mother with tragical eyes, hardly controlling tears of she knew not what strange distress.
“What does it mean?” said Lucian, as Lady Haredale turned away. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t ask,” said Amethyst. “Oh, Lucian, it’s like heaven to see you, and know that I belong to you, – but – but – ”
“You don’t belong to any one else; keep yourself quite separate. You’re mine, mine only,” said Lucian in the short, masterful tone peculiar to him.
“I hate that fellow,” he continued, as he drew her away into the cypress walk; “he’s a bad sort.”
“But now he is going to be married, we shall not see anything more of him,” said Amethyst.
“Have nothing to do with him. You haven’t seen very much of him, have you?”
“Why, I have seen a good deal of him. He has been here so much; but – Lucian, I don’t think I notice any one now-a-days. I’m always thinking of you.”
Lucian looked down at her with eyes which, light in colour and steadfast in expression, had a peculiar unfaltering clearness, pure as crystal, but a little hard. He was rarely tender in word or look, he showed his love for Amethyst by taking possession of her.
“No one else has any right to you,” he said firmly; and, as he took her in his arms, she forgot everything that troubled her, in his kiss.
Chapter Ten
Eden’s Gate
When Lucian left her, Amethyst stood leaning over the stile, which, at the end of the long cypress walk, led through a little wood into the fields. She watched his brisk active movements, his tall slight figure, with a proud sense of possession. In the morning he would come back again, through the shade and sunlight of the woodland path, and if, as might be, she were watching for him, would wave a greeting where now he waved a farewell. She turned as he passed out of sight, and started to see her graceful, charming mother coming down the long walk towards her.
“My darling child,” said Lady Haredale, with a little anxious frown on her sweet face, “I made the best of it just now; but I’m in mortal trouble. Will you help me?”
“Oh, mother dear, what is it?” said Amethyst, as Lady Haredale put her arm round her waist, and walked on by her side.
“Well, dear, the truth is that I owe some money. When people are in such a dreadful state of hard-upishness as your poor papa and I, one can do nothing like other people. You see how careful I am about my clothes, I’m not a bit extravagant; but just a little game of cards is a most innocent diversion – when one can afford it. I know it’s just the one pleasure I can’t resist – my poor old daddy couldn’t either – which was why your dear father only got about three farthings with me – a thing Charles has never forgiven.”
“Oh, mother,” said Amethyst, breathlessly, “then don’t buy the velvet dress. And I would just have a plain white to be married in.”
“Oh, darling, that’s nothing to do with it. But I’m going to confide in my girl, and she’ll keep my secret, won’t she?”
“Oh, yes – yes!”
“Well, I lost some money to Lady Saint George, and the awkward thing is, that she is a distant cousin of Mrs Leigh’s; as rich as Croesus the Saint Georges are really. But she hates me – always did – and lately she has made friends with Charles. I wouldn’t know Charles, I think a line should be drawn, but she chose to take him up, and actually ‘confided’ to him my little delay. That was mean, and I hate meanness. Well, Charles and his father had one of their pleasant interviews; Charles wanted money as usual, and when my lord couldn’t give it him, and complained of his constant drains upon