Amethyst: The Story of a Beauty

“Oh, my dear child, she couldn’t quite invent it, I think she must have seen you. And if he had kissed you – I shall always maintain that he did no harm. Dear old Tony! – And an engaged man! But if you say that Mrs Leigh was mistaken, of course Lucian is bound to believe you.”

Amethyst did not speak.

“Could it have been some one else – Miss Verrequers herself, or one of the little girls? Shall I call them?”

“Certainly not, Lady Haredale,” said Lucian; “I want no witnesses. Amethyst will explain to me.”

“Well,” said Lady Haredale, still lightly, “I will leave her to do so. She can only tell you what I have told you now. But, Lucian, take care, – I cannot have her word doubted.”

As Lady Haredale walked away, uttering the last words with a charming air of motherly dignity, Lucian turned round and gazed into Amethyst’s face.

“What did my mother see?” he said, “what makes her think this? She always speaks the truth.”

“She did not see me,” said Amethyst, “with Major Fowler in the ante-room.”

“Then is what Lady Haredale says true?” Amethyst did not speak.

“There is some mystery. There is something not square somewhere. What is your mother making you do? You were not like yourself yesterday; you had been crying when that scoundrel’s engagement was announced? What does it mean?”

As she was still speechless, he went on, his boyish roughness of manner ill matching the agony in his pale stern face.

“I hate mysteries. It is your duty to tell me the truth. Soon you can have no secrets from me.”

“I cannot explain what Mrs Leigh saw,” said Amethyst, but she sank slowly down on the bench as she spoke, for her limbs failed her. Then suddenly she sprang up, and threw herself into his arms, with one outburst of all her forces against the fate that was closing in upon her.

“Oh, Lucian, trust me, trust me; I swear to you you may.”

As Lucian strained her in his arms, he felt all his convictions reeling and yielding; but the answer was as inevitable to his nature, as the appeal to hers.

“Oh, my darling – my love, I do trust you. But you ought to tell.”

What Amethyst might have done in another moment, convinced as she was that she ought not to tell, is doubtful, but, before she could speak. Lady Haredale returned, and with her Tory and Kattern.

“Oh, Lucian,” said Tory, in her high drawling voice, “my lady says you think that Amethyst has secrets with Tony. So she has; she gave him a present from us. We bought him a purse with our own money. It was all quite correct, I assure you.”

“Is that true?” said Lucian, abruptly. Amethyst had started up, and he saw the startled horror in her eyes. – “Madam,” he said to Lady Haredale, while his young eyes flashed fire, “that is the story which was to be made up. I will leave you to improve upon it,” and he lifted his hat, and dashed away almost more rapidly than he had come.

Amethyst stood for a moment motionless; then she turned to her mother, and caught both her hands.

“Mother,” she cried, “your are ruining my life. I will never, never marry Lucian, while I am pledged to deceive him. – Never, not if he would marry me!”

Lady Haredale’s shallow sentimental nature fairly quailed before the passion in the girl’s eyes and voice, but she held to her point.

“Oh, nonsense, my dear, you are far too scrupulous. It’s not your secret; we must make it right somehow. Why, there were thousands of things I had to keep secret when I was married!”

“Yes, mother, I dare say there were,” said Amethyst, dropping her hands, and walking away across the grass.

Lucian’s angry eyes had pierced her heart, but the unveiling of her sweet mother’s real nature seemed to have laid it waste. Half an hour later, as she sat in her room, crushed and stupefied, not one dear thought able to lift itself up under the frightful weight, hot, eager hands caught hers, and Una’s voice sobbed out —

“Oh, Amethyst, my darling Amethyst, I’ve ruined you; it’s all my fault, I did it! Tory says so, and it’s true, but if I don’t deny it and deny it, it will ruin him; Miss Verrequers will give him up. Oh, I can’t spoil his prospects. Oh, what shall I do?” Amethyst started up. There stood Una, with a very white face and black-ringed eyes, looking, in her ordinary striped frock and long hanging hair, as unlike her sister as could well be.

“You!” exclaimed Amethyst. “What do you mean? What can you mean, Una?”

“I mean, he kissed me. It was good-bye for ever and ever – and ever – there in the ante-room; Mrs Leigh must have seen me. Tory guessed directly, and of course she’ll tell. But, if I won’t own to it, they can’t bring it home to him. But you – oh, my darling! Oh, what shall I do?”

That the children should be mixed up in the miserable story seemed the last drop in Amethyst’s cup. But the sense that, helpless as she was, she was less helpless than Una, did rouse her to some power of consideration.

“I don’t think they could mistake you for me,” she said vaguely.

“I was all white, and my frock was long. Some one did think I was Miss Haredale. Amethyst, I think I could do it this way. If they think he had an affair with you, that would be worse still for him. We’ll go all three of us to Mrs Leigh, and say, we’re very sorry there’s been a mistake, but Major Fowler always played with us, as my lady said, and that he just gave me a kiss for fun, to tease me, as I was dressed like a grown-up girl. She’ll think we’re forward little minxes, but she’ll never think more of a child like me. I can do the child well enough, if I like,” concluded Una with melancholy shrewdness.

“I wouldn’t have you do such a thing for the world!” exclaimed Amethyst, horrified. “Besides, Mrs Leigh wouldn’t believe you; and that is not all.”

“Oh no, I know there’s some awful scrape of my lady’s. But won’t she believe about the purse either?” said Una, to whom the scheme of exciting magnanimous confession had a certain miserable attraction.

“Una!” said Amethyst, “I’d rather never see Lucian again, than have you and Tory tell lies for my sake. Oh, it is all horrible – better a thousand times lose him, than know I was deceiving him!”

“Is that true?” said Una, in a tone of intense surprise, and, as she spoke, an awful wave of self-knowledge flooded Amethyst’s mind; and the nature within her, akin to the mother whom she had found out, akin to the very girl whose proposal was so shocking to her, rose up in all its strength of self-pleasing passion. Was it true? She, felt as if her own soul, and the soul of her young sister, – nay, Lucian’s soul too, might depend on her answer.

“Oh, God help me! God help me!” she cried. “It shall be true! I’ll join in no cheating – nor let you do things worse than you understand, for my sake. But oh, it’s a dreadful world! Oh, mother, mother!” and floods of tears and choking sobs overwhelmed her.

Una twined her arms round her, kissing her, and calling her by every tender name. For a moment Amethyst held back, half shrinking from her, half feeling how unfit it was for such a child to witness her despair. But she was little more than a child herself, in extreme need of love and sympathy. She put up her cheek to Una’s, and the two poor girls, victims of the sins and follies of others, clung to each other for the comfort there was no one else on earth to give them.

Chapter Fourteen

The Wickedness of the World

It was no surprise to Sylvester Riddell, when, as he sat alone on that same morning, in the room appropriated to himself and his home belongings, Lucian Leigh burst in upon him, white-faced and fierce, and broke out with no previous greeting.

“Sylvester! You were with my mother yesterday. What does it all mean? What is this extraordinary delusion?”

All through the long hours of the sleepless night, Sylvester had turned over and over in his mind what answer he should give to this inevitable question. He knew what no one else knew, enough to make him certain that there was some coil around the girl, who, three months before, had seemed the embodiment of fresh, frank youth, enough to make him doubtful how far the coil was of her own twisting. He was Lucian’s friend, he feared for his future, and yet, if Mrs Leigh’s eyes had not seen as well as his, he felt that he would have forsworn the witness of his own eyes and ears, sooner than betray his suspicions.

“What – what has taken place?” he said, lamely.

Lucian was in great agony of mind. Every moment that had passed since he left Amethyst had added to the tumult within him; but he stood up straight, and spoke clearly and to the point.

“You were with my mother; I need not repeat her story. Amethyst denies it utterly. She was never there with him. But she says she took a walk with him in the shrubbery, and that you met them. – Well, I saw you with them!”

“Well!” said Sylvester, in a tone of noncommittal.

“She gave him a packet. There was some mystery between them?”

Sylvester was silent, and Lucian hurried on – “Lady Haredale brought up one of the little girls to say that it was some childish present. She – Amethyst – did not confirm it, but – Oh, I cannot discuss it, or her – ” stamping his foot impatiently. “But she won’t speak out. It is maddening, Sylvester?”

Poor Lucian appealed for he knew not what – contradiction, advice, sympathy; and yet all the time he was fully conscious how unfit it was that he should make any appeal at all on such a matter.

“Lucian,” cried Sylvester, starting up, and driving his hands into his pockets as he walked about the room, “she has got involved in some ugly coil. Take her, and ask her if it should come between you. Abide by her answer. She loves you – I know she loves you; no one could see her with you, and doubt it. Take her out of the snares. Before Heaven, I would!”