Lord Ramblay stood stock-still in the passageway, his candle held aloft to illuminate the stooping figure before him. For several moments it did not budge, evidently from terror. He coughed, and essayed another tack.
“If I may be so bold, may I inquire what you are doing, Cousin?”
Maggie had hardly dared breathe at first. An initial rush of terror at being discovered thus had made her heart beat wildly, and when her thoughts were clear enough to recognize the sardonic tones of the Viscount, she was not much relieved. For a moment, she remained frozen as she was, half stooped over the miniature portrait on the rug, her thoughts rushing crazily along in the effort to seize upon some excuse for her strange behavior. At length, however, realizing that no excuse on earth could salvage her from her present embarrassment, she stood up slowly, and with a mortified expression, turned to face her cousin.
“I—I had not expected you to return so soon, Lord Ramblay!” she commenced rather lamely.
In the flickering candlelight, she could see the Viscount’s lips curl into a contemptuous smile.
“I dare say you did not,” was pronounced in tones of the heaviest sarcasm. “But I am rather more interested in your present employment than in your calculations of the time of my return. If it is not asking too much, perhaps you would not mind explaining what you are doing?”
“What—what I am doing, Cousin?”
“I see your hearing has not suffered greatly. I hope your tongue is equally unimpaired.”
“Ah!” Maggie emitted a little sigh of absolute defeat. There was no point in caviling, she saw at once. Lord Ramblay’s expression mirrored his absolute contempt of her, and in truth she could not much blame him. With a self-denigrating smile, she straightened her shoulders and stared straight into his eyes.
“There is certainly no point in trying to convince you that I meant no harm, Lord Ramblay. You will no doubt only think the worse of me for trying to defend myself.”
“Defend yourself?” repeated the Viscount, the lines of his mouth beginning to show a trace of real amusement. “Why, what should you defend yourself against? It is no crime to go in search of a warming brick, which I assume is what you are after. Only, I should have thought it a great deal easier simply to ring for a maid, who would have brought it to you gladly—and warm, besides. I myself am not very fond of cold bricks in my bed, but perhaps our tastes are different. Oh! I see by your look that is not the case. Remind me, if you will, Cousin, to reprimand the servant in question. I am sure it has always been the custom of this house to provide guests with every article of comfort they may require, that they may be saved the trouble of ransacking the place in the middle of the night.”
Now Maggie’s cheeks were perfectly scarlet, and her throat constricted with anger at this cruel baiting. All desire for caution, all capacity for calm flew out the window, as she cried out—
“Pray, Cousin—if you wish to torture me, why do not you have done with it? You know perfectly well I was not searching for a brick, nor any other article for my own comfort! I came in search of—of——”
“Of?” repeated Lord Ramblay helpfully.
But here Maggie was rather at a loss. She did not know herself exactly what she had hoped to find. Certainly she could not accuse him, without any evidence, of what she had so long suspected, and yet neither could she allow him to punish her like this when he was the one who ought to be interrogated. In an agony of humiliation and doubt, she stood her ground and eyed him warily.
Lord Ramblay waited patiently for a reply, but, when he saw what difficulty his cousin was put to for one, he remarked softly, “Of something, certainly. I have no idea what you were in hopes of finding here, Miss Trevor, and yet I have a notion of what you might find, if you persisted. Shall I tell you what it is?”
Maggie nodded dumbly, uncertain if she was still the target of his wit or if he intended to be serious. Lord Ramblay’s face, so far as she could see, was perfectly grave, but then she had long ago lost any faith in the outward movements of his features as an accurate indicator of his real sentiments.
“You might—and, as I have just heard, already have found—one small child, incapable of speaking. That is very sad, is it not? A child of six years old, who cannot—and may very likely never—speak, laugh, even cry?”
“Very, very sad, your lordship,” murmured Maggie, feeling more humble than she had ever done in two and twenty years.
“Oh! I am glad to hear you say so, ma’am. It was my unhappy belief that you considered it the height of naturalness.”
“What!” cried Maggie, unable to believe what she was hearing. “However could you think so?”
“Because,” replied Lord Ramblay in a flat voice, which struck the listener as twice as awful as the heaviest irony, “I have just come from seeing my son. In truth, my early return—which seems to have inconvenienced you so much—was precisely on account of him. I was called back from London by the news that he had taken a turn for the worse. His nurse—a woman with a kind heart, if lacking something in sense—was at first too wracked with sobbing to tell me what had happened. But at last I was able to coax out of her an explanation. It seems my son suffered a dreadful shock today, and feeling she had been in part responsible, she was loath to tell me of it. She had failed in her chief duty, which is to see that the child is not disturbed, that he has the benefit of absolute quiet, and is not frightened or excited by anyone. Miss Trevor, I do not know if I can expect you to understand my position; that child has been the center of my existence for the past five years. At huge expense, and at the cost of any trace of peace I have remaining in my life, I have been at pains to ensure that he has the best medical care to be found in Europe. The most distinguished physicians from this kingdom and others have attended him, and now, in one ignorant moment, just when we believed a little progress was being made, you have ruined all of it! Do not mistake me—I am convinced you meant no real harm. But you have wrought it just the same. Out of a blind and ignorant belief that you knew better than anyone, you have forced your way into a situation that you can have no understanding of.”
Maggie could only gape in disbelief. Never in all her life had she felt more mortified, more chagrined, more humbled before another human being. She could not believe the child had really suffered from seeing her—and yet here was the proof, put in such certain terms that no power of rhetoric could have disputed it. What had she done? Merely smiled at the child, petted him, played a game with him—and yet here was his father, accusing her of the most vile kind of cruelty!
Lord Ramblay stared at her for a moment in disgust, and then, with a quick intake of breath, turned to go. He had almost covered half the distance of the passageway before Maggie found her voice.
“Pray listen to me a moment, sir! It is true I did not mean any harm—oh, how true! I only meant to help him. But, if I have done any damage, pray let me help to cure it!”
“There is nothing you could do now, Miss Trevor,” was pronounced with the most awful iciness. “I believe you have done quite enough.”
There was nothing Maggie could reply to this, but an awful rage, partly at herself and partly from the belief that her cousin’s accusations were false, made her exclaim,
“That is true, Lord Ramblay. But what is my crime, in comparison to yours? I only played with your son for half an hour, and as gently as you can imagine. But what have you done to put him in this state in the first place? What must he have seen, to be incapable of speaking? What must he see every night, when he sleeps, that has made him unable to laugh like other children?”
Maggie could hardly believe she had said so much, but saw her cousin’s back stiffen suddenly with a feeling of satisfaction. In a very different tone, a tone which showed her she had struck home at last, he said.
“That can be no concern of yours, Cousin. You have already meddled where ignorance and an impassioned spirit, without the benefit of either experience or wisdom, have led you. I could not prevent you doing so then, but I had rather be damned to eternity than let you pry into my affairs any further.”
And with this, the Viscount turned on his heels and would have strode off, had not he been detained once more.
“I—I shall leave in the morning, your lordship,” declared Maggie, driven by anger and humiliation. “I cannot stay any longer where my presence is so distasteful.”
“As it happens, I have already arranged for your departure. You are to go earlier than planned to London with my mother and sister. I cannot let you go back to your father until my promise to him has been fulfilled. I shall not see you again, however—my son’s condition demands my presence here.”
Maggie had no time to argue, for her cousin had passed through a door and closed it behind him before she had time to speak.