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“Do stop calling mepoor Maidie. If you have something to say to me, then say it, or go away.”
The cold eyes gleamed. “Very well. Tell her, Adela, in plain words.”
“Mary, open your eyes!” urged Lady Shurland. “Read into Delagarde’s conduct towards you what is obvious to the world.”
Maidie became again conscious of confusion. She clutched at the idea she had felt herself obliged to dismiss. “Are you saying he is jealous?”
“Of his marked-out property, nothing more,” Eustace said. “Your ambition—or your wishes—might blind you, but you must know, deep down, how little Delagarde could desire you for yourself alone.”
“You are scarcely fitted to take your place beside him in the position which he occupies in the world of fashion,” added Adela on a waspish note. “He must know that well enough.”
“But you, Maidie,” Eustace continued, again horribly unctuous, “do not dream of social success. You will be contented enough if he will but provide you with an observatory at his country home. He needs an heir, yes, and trusts you may be persuaded to give him one.”
“What could be more convenient for him?” Adela added. “He may have all the advantage of your fortune, and none of the inconvenience of your presence in his life.”
It was all Maidie could do to command her features as the full import of these suggestions sank in. She felt sick. There was a thudding at her temples. Why should there be this desolation at her heart? They had outlined a programme she would, some few weeks earlier, have seized upon eagerly. Was contemplating still—but with any man other than Delagarde.
Aware of the continued regard of this malevolent pair, she rallied her forces. She must remember their whole purpose was to induce her to marry Eustace. She must not allow anything they said—whatever its import—to affect her.
“Even if what you say is true,” she said, surprised at the steadiness of her own voice, “it can avail Delagarde nothing if I choose to marry someone else.”
Eustace gave a jeering little laugh. “Choose?”
Adela was openly scornful. “What a fool you are, my dear Mary! You have placed yourself wholly in his power. You have only yourself to blame if he takes advantage of the situation.”
This was beyond Maidie. “How could he do so? He has no control over me—over my decisions.” For to deny his control over her emotions would be futile and dishonest.
“Maidie, Maidie,” chided Eustace softly. “You are living in his house.”
“Of course I am living in his house. What has that to say to anything?”
“It sets you at so great a disadvantage, my dear, I doubt if even Lady Hester could save you.”
She stared at him, blank with incomprehension. Adela positively sniggered, and Maidie’s glance went quickly to her sharp-featured face.
“You are such an innocent, Mary,” said her cousin. “Poor thing, it adds so greatly to your vulnerability. Thank heaven we are able to put you upon your guard.”
“But against what?”
Eustace gave the secretive smile which did not reach his eyes. “Have you not yet understood? It will be easy enough for Delagarde to ensure his victory over you, Maidie. He has only to make you wholly his own—by seduction.”
Maidie gazed at him in shock, beset by a tide of warmth which seemed to spread throughout her body, causing a thrumming at her heart, and a most improper series of images to course through her mind. These last were so very unbecoming she broke into hasty denial.
“Humdudgeon! I refuse to believe Delagarde to be so dishonourable. I know he has no wish to marry me—and no need of my fortune besides.”
“Believe what you wish, then,” said Adela, adding slyly, “but his true intentions will become obvious enough in time. Let us see how he conducts himself when you attempt to marry another.”
The interview with Adela and Eustace had left Maidie so discomposed she had sought out the ladies’ retiring room as soon as they left her. It had been some time before she was able to command herself sufficiently to return to the party, and for the rest of the evening she had been so abstracted she could not afterwards recall anything other than the hideous consciousness of Delagarde’s presence. He had not again approached her, much to her relief, but she was so aware of him she could at any given moment have pointed out his whereabouts without looking.
How she had managed to talk so nonchalantly to Lady Hester in the carriage on the way home, or with what excuses she had staved off the inevitable eager questions of her duenna, she could not have said. But she found herself alone at last, and lay in bed, listening within the curtains for the door to close behind Trixie. The moment it did so, she let her breath go in a long sigh, and discovered tears were trickling down her cheeks.
She lashed herself mentally for a fool, but the flow of tears refused to stop. She did not even know why she was crying—except for the cruelly hurtful remarks which had been addressed to her by those two horrid creatures. Of course, she knew how little fitted she was to be the wife of a fashionable peer. But need they have said so? Naturally she did not believe for one moment their expressed fears on her behalf had the slightest foundation. Was she to accept Delagarde would conduct himself in such an underhand way? As for the ridiculous delusion he might seek to seduce her—!
But here, for some unfathomable reason, a pang, sharp and piercing, went through her, and the hot tears gathered momentum. Maidie clutched her pillows and buried her face in their comforting softness.
She slept late into Friday morning, the accumulated distresses, coming so soon after her recent illness, proving exhausting in her weakened state. Awaking with a slight headache, she was relieved to have an excuse to obey the decree of Lady Hester—summoned by an anxious Worm—that she remain in bed for the day.
Pampered and cared for, Maidie’s natural resilience reasserted itself and she began to revive. She refused to give place to the intrusive thought no message or inquiry about her condition came from the Viscount. If she once or twice looked up rather eagerly at a knock upon the door, and then sank back at the entrance of Trixie or the Worm, it was not disappointment, but only a natural reaction to the boredom of seeing the same faces all day long.
