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The Curate Of Poltons
by
Newhaven, still saying nothing, turned his back on her and made as if he would walk into the house and leave her there, ignored, discarded, done with. She, realizing the crisis which had come, forgetting everything except the imminent danger of losing him once for all, without time for long explanation or any round–about seductions, ran forward, laying her hand on his arm and blurting out, “But I’ve refused him.”
I do not know what Newhaven thinks now, but I sometimes doubt whether he would not have been wiser to shake off the detaining hand and pursue his lonely way, first into the house, and ultimately to his aunt’s. But (to say nothing of the twenty thousand a year, which, after all, and lie you as romantic as you may please to be, is not a thing to be sneezed at) Trix’s face, its mingled eagerness and shame, its flushed cheeks and shining eyes, the piquancy of its unwonted humility, overcame him. He stopped dead.
“I–I was obliged to give him an–an opportunity,” said Miss Trix, having the grace to stumble a little in her speech. “And–and it’s all your fault.”
The war was thus, by happy audacity, carried into Newhaven’s own quarters.
“My fault!” he exclaimed. “My fault that you walk all day with that curate!”
Then Miss Trix–and let no irrelevant considerations mar the appreciation of line acting–dropped her eyes and murmured softly, “I–I was so terribly afraid of seeming to expect you.”
Wherewith she (and not he) ran away, lightly, up the stairs, turning just one glance downwards as she reached the landing. Newhaven was looking up from below with an ‘enchanted’ smile–the word is Trix’s own: I should probably have used a different one.
Was then the curate of Poltons utterly defeated–brought to his knees, only to lie spurned? It seemed so: and he came down to dinner that night with a subdued and melancholy expression. Trix, on the other hand, was brilliant and talkative to the last degree, and the gayety spread from her all round the table, leaving untouched only the rejected lover and Mrs. Wentworth; for the last-named lady, true to her distinguishing quality, had begun to talk to poor Jack Ives in low soothing tones.
After dinner Trix was not visible; but the door of the little boudoir beyond stood half-open, and very soon Newhaven edged his way through. Almost at the same moment Jack Ives and Mrs. Wentworth passed out of the window and began to walk up and down the gravel. Nobody but myself appeared to notice these remarkable occurrences, but I watched them with keen interest. Half an hour passed and then there smote on my watchful ear the sound of a low laugh from the boudoir. It was followed almost immediately by a stranger sound from the gravel walk. Then, all in a moment, two things happened. The boudoir door opened, and Trix, followed by Newhaven, came in smiling; from the window entered Jack Ives and Mrs. Wentworth. My eyes were on the curate. He gave one sudden comprehending glance towards the other couple; then he took the widows hand, led her up to Dora, and said, in low yet penetrating tones, “Will you wish us joy, Mrs. Polton?” The Squire, Rippleby, and Algy Stanton were round them in an instant. I kept my place, watching now the face of Trix Queenborough. She turned first flaming red, then very pale. I saw her turn to Newhaven and speak one or two urgent imperative words to him. Then, drawing herself up to her full height, she crossed the room to where the group was assembled round Mrs. Wentworth and Jack Ives.
“What’s the matter? What are you saying?” she asked.
Mrs. Wentworth’s eyes were modestly cast down, but a smile played round her mouth. No one spoke for a moment. Then Jack Ives said, “Mrs. Wentworth has promised to be my wife. Miss Queenborough.”
For a moment, hardly perceptible. Trix hesitated; then, with the most winning, touching, sweetest smile in the world, she said, “So you took my advice, and our afternoon walk was not wasted after all!”