The Spoils of Poynton

'So much that they're all, and that she can let everything else absolutely depend upon them?'

Owen weighed her question as if he felt the responsibility of his answer. But that answer came in a moment, and, as Fleda could see, out of a wealth of memory. 'She never wanted them particularly till they seemed to be in danger. Now she has an idea about them; and when she gets hold of an idea—Oh dear me!' He broke off, pausing and looking away as with a sense of the futility of expression: it was the first time Fleda had ever heard him explain a matter so pointedly or embark at all on a generalization. It was striking, it was touching to her, as he faltered, that he appeared but half capable of floating his generalization to the end. The girl, however, was so far competent to fill up his blank as that she had divined, on the occasion of Mona's visit to Poynton, what would happen in the event of the accident at which he glanced. She had there with her own eyes seen Owen's betrothed get hold of an idea. 'I say, you know, do give me some tea!' he went on irrelevantly and familiarly.

Her profuse preparations had all this time had no sequel, and, with a laugh that she felt to be awkward, she hastily complied with his request. 'It's sure to be horrid,' she said; 'we don't have at all good things.' She offered him also bread and butter, of which he partook, holding his cup and saucer in his other hand and moving slowly about the room. She poured herself a cup, but not to take it; after which, without wanting it, she began to eat a small stale biscuit. She was struck with the extinction of the unwillingness she had felt at Ricks to contribute to the bandying between them of poor Mona's name; and under this influence she presently resumed: 'Am I to understand that she engaged herself to marry you without caring for you?'

Owen looked out into Raphael Road. 'She did care for me awfully. But she can't stand the strain.'

'The strain of what?'

'Why, of the whole wretched thing.'

'The whole thing has indeed been wretched, and I can easily conceive its effect upon her,' Fleda said.

Her visitor turned sharp round. 'You can?' There was a light in his strong stare. 'You can understand it's spoiling her temper and making her come down on me? She behaves as if I were of no use to her at all!'

Fleda hesitated. 'She's rankling under the sense of her wrong.'

'Well, was it I, pray, who perpetrated the wrong? Ain't I doing what I can to get the thing arranged?'

The ring of his question made his anger at Mona almost resemble for a minute an anger at Fleda; and this resemblance in turn caused our young lady to observe how handsome he looked when he spoke, for the first time in her hearing, with that degree of heat, and used, also for the first time, such a term as 'perpetrated.' In addition, his challenge rendered still more vivid to her the mere flimsiness of her own aid. 'Yes, you've been perfect,' she said. 'You've had a most difficult part. You've had to show tact and patience, as well as firmness, with your mother, and you've strikingly shown them. It's I who, quite unintentionally, have deceived you. I haven't helped you at all to your remedy.'

'Well, you wouldn't at all events have ceased to like me, would you?' Owen demanded. It evidently mattered to him to know if she really justified Mona. 'I mean of course if you had liked me—liked me as she liked me,' he explained.

Fleda looked this inquiry in the face only long enough to recognize that, in her embarrassment, she must take instant refuge in a superior one. 'I can answer that better if I know how kind to her you've been. Have you been kind to her?' she asked as simply as she could.

'Why, rather, Miss Vetch!' Owen declared. 'I've done every blessed thing she wished. I rushed down to Ricks, as you saw, with fire and sword, and the day after that I went to see her at Waterbath.' At this point he checked himself, though it was just the point at which her interest deepened. A different look had come into his face as he put down his empty teacup. 'But why should I tell you such things, for any good it does me? I gather that you've no suggestion to make me now except that I shall request my solicitor to act. Shall I request him to act?'

Fleda scarcely heard his words; something new had suddenly come into her mind. 'When you went to Waterbath after seeing me,' she asked, 'did you tell her all about that?'

Owen looked conscious. 'All about it?'

'That you had had a long talk with me, without seeing your mother at all?'

'Oh yes, I told her exactly, and that you had been most awfully kind, and that I had placed the whole thing in your hands.'

Fleda was silent a moment. 'Perhaps that displeased her,' she at last suggested.

'It displeased her fearfully,' said Owen, looking very queer.

'Fearfully?' broke from the girl. Somehow, at the word, she was startled.

'She wanted to know what right you had to meddle. She said you were not honest.'

'Oh!' Fleda cried, with a long wail. Then she controlled herself. 'I see.'

'She abused you, and I defended you. She denounced you—'

She checked him with a gesture. 'Don't tell me what she did!' She had colored up to her eyes, where, as with the effect of a blow in the face, she quickly felt the tears gathering. It was a sudden drop in her great flight, a shock to her attempt to watch over what Mona was entitled to. While she had been straining her very soul in this attempt, the object of her magnanimity had been pronouncing her 'not honest.' She took it all in, however, and after an instant was able to speak with a smile. She would not have been surprised to learn, indeed, that her smile was strange. 'You had said a while ago that your mother and I quarreled about you. It's much more true that you and Mona have quarreled about me.'

Owen hesitated, but at last he brought it out. 'What I mean to say is, don't you know, that Mona, if you don't mind my saying so, has taken it into her head to be jealous.'

'I see,' said Fleda. 'Well, I dare say our conferences have looked very odd.'

'They've looked very beautiful, and they've been very beautiful. Oh, I've told her the sort you are!' the young man pursued.