A Double Knot

He raised her face, and gazed tenderly into her wild eyes, as he said:

“Your happiness is my care, Marie, my child. I promised to try and make your home one of rest and peace. Ask me what you will, and it shall be done.”

“Then you will keep our lives separate from my sister’s,” she cried eagerly.

“If you asked me my wishes on the subject,” he said quietly, and he smiled as he spoke. “I should gladly cut myself off from all connection with Mr Elbraham and his wife. But we have our social duties to perform, Marie, even if they are against our taste.”

“Duties!” cried Marie excitedly; “it is my duty to avoid my sister, yours to keep us apart. Believe me, this is for the best.”

“I gladly follow out your wishes, my child,” said Lord Henry, “and I will ask you no more questions if you will try to let this cloud go by.”

“Yes, yes,” she cried eagerly, “it is gone;” and she flung her arms round his neck, and sobbed hysterically upon his breast.

“There,” she cried with a piteous smile, for the face of Marcus Glen seemed to haunt her still. “Now I am quite calm, and I have a petition to make.”

“What is it?” he said with a sigh of relief, and the lines in his face grew less deep.

“I want you to let me ask my cousin Ruth to come and stay with me – to be like a companion to me. Don’t think,” she hastened to add, “that I am dull and want companions, but I have a double object to perform.”

“Yes?” he said inquiringly.

“I wish – I want to withdraw her from Clotilde’s influence.”

“A good and worthy desire, my child,” he said, bowing his approval. “I like Ruth very, very much. She is sweet, and natural, and true.”

“She is,” cried Marie eagerly.

“And your other object?”

“I wish to watch over her, and to try and influence her future. She would be happier with me, and if she is to marry I should like hers to be a worthy choice.”

“Of course, yes, you are quite right; and what do you say – shall we fetch her here?”

“Yes,” cried Marie eagerly.

“When? To-day?”

“Yes – no,” replied Marie. “I am not strong enough; I am not calm enough to-day. I will write and ask her to be ready to-morrow, and, if you will do it, let us drive down and fetch her.”

Lord Henry Moorpark sighed with relief and pleasure, and soon after, fighting bravely to crush down her own agony of heart, Marie wrote a note to ask her aunts’ permission for Ruth to come, and another to request her to be ready – and all the time with an intensity of sorrow striving with her wild and passionate love. She seemed to see in Ruth one who was to save her from the commission of a crime from which she shrank in horror. Ruth would be her protector. Ruth should be always with her, and she would learn from her sweet, innocent young heart how to school her own.

The visit of Ruth to her cousin in Saint James’s Square commenced during a temporary absence of Mr Paul Montaigne from his apartments at Teddington.

Business had taken him to London, where he stayed a week, at the end of which time he walked through the chestnut avenue quietly, as of old, paused by the Diana pool to cast a few crumbs to the fishes, and then continued his walk, with his hands behind him, to the Palace, where he was met by Joseph, at whom he smiled benignantly, and was shown in to where the honourable sisters were seated at their embroidery. The hands of the fair Isabella were a little more tremulous than was their wont, consequent upon an encounter during a walk, when she and her sister had met Glen.

The visitor was received most warmly, and heard glowing accounts of the happiness and brilliant establishments of the dear children.

“Yes,” he said blandly, “they must be happy. I had some thought of calling upon them when in town, but I bethought me that they must be fully occupied with their friends and the management of their homes, and that my visit, at present, might seem out of place.”

“I think it would have been a duty properly fulfilled – what do you say, sister?” exclaimed the Honourable Philippa.

“I think it would have been a duty and a kindness,” said the Honourable Isabella, making a couple of false stitches before she found out her mistake.

“I have been remiss,” said Montaigne, with a bland smile, as he bent his head. “How day by day one awakens more and more to the fact that human nature is far from perfect!”

“Ah, indeed!” said the Honourable Philippa.

“Yes, indeed!” said the Honourable Isabella, with a lively recollection of her thoughts regarding Marcus Glen.

“I must try and remedy my failing, ladies, at my next visit to town. But how is the last lamb in this peaceful fold – Ruth?”

He uttered this inquiry with his eyes half-closed, and a calm, sweet smile played the while about his lips till he heard the Honourable Philippa’s reply:

“Oh, she is in town! Lord and Lady Henry came down in the barouche the day before yesterday, and fetched her up to stay with them for some time.”

The warm, pleasant look in Paul Montaigne’s face changed to one of a grim cold grey; the smile disappeared, his lips tightened, and he seemed for the moment to have grown old and careworn. Even his voice changed, and sounded hard and harsh as he said quickly:

“Indeed? I did not know.”

“Marie thought it would be a pleasant change for her, and companionable as well, and dear Lady Littletown, who was calling at the time, said it was the best thing we could do. So she is gone.”

“It would be a most pleasant change.”

“And, of course, you know, dear Mr Montaigne, Ruth is no longer a child, and – er – you understand.”

“Yes, of course,” said Montaigne; who, however, recalled to mind that Ruth was quite a child until her cousins were married.

At that idea of seeing company and the following suggestion of marriage the strange pallor became more evident in Montaigne’s countenance, and in spite of his forced smile and self-control, he kept passing his dry tongue over his parched lips, and unconsciously drew in his breath as if he were suffering from thirst.

He grew worse as the conversation continued to take the ugly turn, to him, of marriage. For, said the Honourable Philippa:

“Lady Littletown informs us that a marriage is on the tapis between Mr Arthur Litton, a friend of Mr Elbraham, and our dear Lady Anna Maria Morton.”

“I congratulate Lady Anna Maria, I am sure,” said Montaigne huskily; and as he glanced at the Honourable Isabella that lady trembled more than usual, and believed that Montaigne was reading her heart, and mentally asking her whether she would ever be married to Marcus Glen.

Mr Montaigne refused to stay to lunch. He had so many little things to attend to consequent upon the business that had called him to London; in fact, even now he was only down for a few hours, having come to seek some papers. These he had found, and he was going back to town at once. Business was very tiresome, he said.

The honourable sisters agreed that it was, and Mr Montaigne took his leave with reverent, affectionate grace, and passed out into the gardens, along whose broad gravel paths he walked slowly in his customary way – bland, sweet, and introspective with his half-closed eyes. But though he did not increase his pace in obedience to his rapidly-beating pulse, a close observer would have noticed that he did not stop to feed the fishes on his way back to Teddington, while his landlady was surprised at the hurried way in which he again took his departure.

The change from Hampton Court to Saint James’s was delightful to Ruth, who only felt one drawback to the pleasure of her visit – that she could not expect to see Marcus Glen and Richard Millet during her walks.

“I wonder whether she thinks him so guilty as she did,” mused Ruth; and these musings were continued one evening after dinner, when she was seated at work in Lord Henry’s drawing-room, with Marie, who was very pale, close at hand; Lord Henry being, according to custom, seated over his wine – a pleasant, old-fashioned fiction, wherein a decanter of excellent old port was placed before him every evening, of which he drank one glass only, and then went to sleep till the butler announced tea.

Just in the midst of her thoughts respecting Marcus Glen, and as if some electric mental chord of sympathy existed between them, Marie said, in a quiet, rather forced voice:

“Have you seen Captain Glen lately, Ruthy?”

It cost Marie a tremendous effort to say those words calmly. And then that terrible pang of jealousy shot through her breast once more as she saw the crimson blood flush into Ruth’s cheeks and rise above her brows.

Poor Ruth faltered, and looked as guilty as if she had been discovered in some offence, as she replied:

“Yes, only a few days ago. He spoke to us in the Gardens. I was walking with my aunts.”

Marie felt relieved. He could not have said much to Ruth if her aunts were by, and she sighed with content, but only to take herself angrily to task once more, and strive to spur herself onward to her duty. It was in this disposition, then, that she said quietly:

“I thought it right to say to you, Ruthy, that I think you were correct about – about Captain Glen.”

“That he was not guilty, as you imagined?” cried Ruth eagerly.

Marie bowed her head, and she felt a strange constriction of the heart on seeing the bright animation in Ruth’s countenance – a suggestion of the pain that she was in future to feel; but she mastered her emotion, and Ruth went on:

“I am so glad, you cannot think!” she said.

“Why?” said Marie, in a cold, hard voice, which made Ruth colour highly; but she spoke out.

“Because it seemed so cruel to one who always was kind and chivalrous and – ”

She stopped short with a curiously puzzled look gathering upon her brow, for it now occurred to her that Marie must be angry with herself for casting off Marcus Glen, but she could not read it in her eyes, while the puzzled look deepened as Marie said quietly:

“I am very glad, Ruthy – very glad to feel that I was not mistaken in him, and that he is indeed the true gentleman we believed.”

Ruth took a stool and placed it at Marie’s feet, seating herself there and clinging to her hand, while her cousin softly stroked her hair, vowing to herself the while that if Ruth cared for Marcus Glen, no jealous pang should hinder her from aiding in bringing them together, and no act of hers should be such as would be traitorous to Lord Henry, her confiding husband.

“Why do you look at me so strangely, Ruthy?” said Marie at last.

“I was thinking.”

“Thinking what?”

“Don’t ask me, Marie,” said Ruth in a troubled tone.

“Why not? Shall I tell you? You were thinking that I repent of having married Lord Henry, now that I know I was deceived. Tell me!” she cried, lifting up Ruth’s burning face, and gazing at her searchingly: “you were thinking that, were you not?”

“Yes,” faltered Ruth, “I was.”

“Then you were wrong, Ruthy,” said Marie gravely. “Perhaps I did feel something like compunction when I found this out, but that is all past now, and I am married to one of the best and kindest of men.”

“And you are happy, Marie?”

There was a pause, for it cost Marie a bitter struggle to utter that one word with a smile, but she spoke it bravely at last, and there was a sense of relief after it was said:

“Quite,” Then, after another pause: “Lord Henry is all that is tender and good to me; and now, Ruthy, about yourself?”

“Oh, I am only too glad to come and see you sometimes!”

“Yes; but about this little heart. Ruthy, will you confide in me?”

Marie drew the trembling girl closer to her side, and tried to gaze in her face, but it was averted.

“Yes,” she whispered; “of course I will.”

“Then tell me this – frankly: you love Marcus Glen?”

The pained aspect came back into Marie’s face, and her brow was rugged, as she waited for Ruth’s answer.

“I don’t know,” said Ruth at last.

“You don’t know? Is this your confidence?”

“Oh, don’t speak angrily to me!” cried Ruth passionately. “I will keep nothing from you, Marie. Indeed, indeed I do not know, only that I have prayed, so hard, so very hard, that I might not love him.”

“Prayed that you might not love him?” said Marie, smiling.

“Yes; for I felt that it would be so treacherous, and that it would cause pain to all – to you – to me. Oh, why do you ask me this?”

“Hush! you are growing agitated, and I want to talk to you quietly, and for your good. Suppose it had ceased to be treacherous to think of Captain Glen – suppose he could be brought to love you, and were to ask you to be his wife: what would you say then?”

A servant entered and announced Mr Paul Montaigne; and, blandly calm and smiling, that gentleman entered the room.

It was a surprise for both, and Ruth’s heart began to beat strangely fast as, in his customary paternal way, Montaigne greeted each in turn. She recalled that evening when their visitor had talked with her in the drawing-room, but her dread had increased each time they met, and it was all she could do to keep from shrinking from him and showing her aversion.

But little was said more than that Montaigne told them he was in town on business, and that he had thought he would call, before Lord Henry joined them, greeting Montaigne very warmly, and ending, to Ruth’s horror, by asking him to dine with them next day, and to spend an hour with them whenever he could spare the time.

The rest of that particular evening was passed in quite a political discussion between Lord Henry and his guest, Montaigne taking so little notice of Ruth that her heart grew more at rest; but there was a something in his look as he said good-night, something in the pressure of his hand, that made her think this man loved her, and as she felt for the moment that it might be possible for him to ask her aunts to give her to him as his wife, the poor girl turned cold, and gladly went off shivering to her sleep-forsaken bed.

Ruth had not been with her long when Marie received the old-fashioned communication of wedding cards; the notice in the paper of the marriage of Arthur Litton, Esq., of Duke Street, Saint James’s, to Lady Anna Maria Morton, of the private apartments, Hampton Court Palace, having escaped her eye.

The young couple took a house in Bryanston Square, which Lady Littletown said was charmingly furnished; visits followed, at one of which an unexpected encounter took place.

Lady Anna Maria was at home, the servant said in answer to the queries, and Marie and Ruth descended from the carriage, and were shown up to the drawing-room, where, seated with his back to the light, talking to the bride, was Glen, in company with Dick Millet.

Marie felt as if all the blood in her body had rushed to her head, and the room seemed to swim round, but she mastered her emotion, and after receiving Lady Anna Maria’s greeting, she turned with quiet self-possession to where Glen stood, cold and stern, waiting to take leave, and calmly offered him her hand.

“I am glad to see you again, Captain Glen,” she said gravely; and Marcus started with astonishment, eagerly catching the extended hand, and hardly able to stammer out some words of greeting.

Then a bitter look crossed his face, and he turned from Marie coldly, and began, with a vivid recollection of the past, to talk to Ruth, while Marie made Dick colour with pleasure as she shook hands, and then sat and chatted with him with all the warmth of an old friend.

But the ice was broken, and that one meeting led to others, Lady Anna Maria, with all the eagerness of a young bride, lending herself to what was evidently in her eyes the making up of a match between Ruth, who was so charming and fresh and sweet, and Captain Glen.

The visits to Bryanston Square were not frequent, but, to her horror, Ruth noted that Glen was always there as if he expected to meet Marie; and though he was kindness itself and full of attention, his quiet deference and low-spoken words were for Marie alone.

Mr Arthur Litton was very rarely there, so that Lady Anna Maria was their sole entertainer, and this little lady had, after so many years of maidenhood, developed in her married life quite a girlish skittishness which resulted in a very silly flirtation with little Dick, who was most constant in his attentions, and seemed to ignore her ladyship’s excessively thin figure.

“I believe, Dick, you’d flirt with a mop if it was stuck in a petticoat,” said Glen to him one day on their way to Bryanston Square. “What’s it all for – practice?”

“I don’t ask you why you flirt with married ladies,” said Dick sharply.

Glen started, and looked grave. And at that time a little friendly counsel might have turned him aside, for he thought a good deal of quiet, grave Lord Henry. But he frowned, and said angrily, “He is no friend of mine. He came between us. Why should I study him?”

He closed his eyes then fast to the risk and danger, giving himself up to his revived passion, and went on gliding slowly down the slope towards the precipice that threatened both.

On the other side, Ruth was passing through a strange course of education. At first, in her innocency, she could hardly believe it possible, but more and more the fact dawned upon her that a kind of self-deception was going on with Marie, who apparently believed that she was furthering Ruth’s happiness, while she was yielding to the delight of being once more in company with Glen, listening to his voice, living a delicious, dreamy existence, of whose danger she seemed to be unaware.