Every one went to bed, and to sleep perhaps, but Sir Victor Catheron. He was too happy to sleep. He lit a cigar and paced to and fro in the soft darkness, thinking of the great bliss this day had brought him, thinking over her every word and smile, thinking that the first of September would give him his darling forever. He walked beneath her window of course. She caught a glimpse of him, and with intolerant impatience extinguished her lights and shrouded herself and her wicked rebellion in darkness. His eyes strayed from hers to his aunt's, farther along the same side. Yes, in her room lights still burned. Lady Helena usually kept early hours, as befitted her years and infirmities. What did she mean by "burning the midnight oil" to-night. Was that black lady from London with her still? and in what way was she mixed up with his aunt? What would they tell him to-morrow? What secret did his aunt hold? They could tell him nothing that could in the slightest influence his marriage with Edith, that he knew; but still he wondered a little what it all could be. At one the lights were still burning. He was surprised, but he would wait no longer. He waved his hand towards Miss Darrell's room, this very far gone young man. "Good-night, my love, my own," he murmured Byronically, and went to bed to sleep and dream of her. And no warning voice came in those dreams to tell Sir Victor Catheron it was the last perfectly happy night he would ever know.
To-morrow came, gray and overcast. The fine weather which had lasted almost since their leaving New York showed signs of breaking up. Miss Stuart's ankle was so much better that she was able to limp downstairs at eleven, A. M., to breakfast, and resume her flirtation with Captain Hammond where it had broken off last night. Miss Darrell had a headache and did not appear. And, in the absence of his idol and day star, Sir Victor collapsed and ate his morning meal in silence and sadness.
Breakfast over, he walked to one of the windows, looking out at the rain, which was beginning to drift against the glass, and wondering, drearily, how he was to drag through the long hours without Edith. He might go and play billiards with the other fellows; but no, he was too restless even for that. What was he to do to kill time? It was a relief when a servant came with a message from his aunt.
"My lady's compliments, Sir Victor, and will you please step upstairs at once."
"Now for the grand secret," he thought; "the skeleton in the family closet—the discovery of the mysterious woman in black."
The woman in black was nowhere visible when he entered his aunt's apartments. Lady Helena sat alone, her face pale, her eyes heavy and red as though with weeping, but all the anger, all the excitement of yesterday gone.
"My dear aunt," the young man said, really concerned, "I am sorry to see you looking so ill. And—surely you have not been crying?"
"Sit down," his aunt replied. "Yes, I have been crying. I have had good reason to cry for many years past. I have sent for you, Victor, to tell you all—at least all it is advisable to tell you at present. And, before I begin, let me apologize if anything I may have said yesterday on the subject of your engagement has wounded you."
"Dear Lady Helena, between you and me there can be no talk of pardon. It was your right to object if you saw cause, and no doubt it is natural that Edith's want of birth and fortune would weigh with you. But they do not weigh with me, and I know the happiness of my life to be very near your heart. I have only to say again that that happiness lies entirely with her—that without her I should be the most miserable fellow alive—to hear you withdraw every objection and take my darling to your arms as your daughter."
She sighed heavily as she listened.
"A wilful man must have his way. You are, as you told me yesterday, your own master, free to do as you please. To Miss Darrell personally I have no objection; she is beautiful, well-bred, and, I believe, a noble girl. Her poverty and obscure birtharedrawbacks in my eyes, but, since they are not so in yours, I will allude to them no more. The objections I made yesterday to your marriage I would have made had your bride been a duke's daughter. I had hoped—it was an absurd hope—that you would not think of marriage for many years to come, perhaps not at all."
"But, Aunt Helena—"
"Do I not say it was an absurd hope? The fact is, Victor, I have been a coward—a nervous, wretched coward from first to last. I shut my eyes to the truth. I feared you might fall in love with this girl, but I put the fear away from me. The time has come when the truth must be spoken, when my love for you can shield you no longer. Before you marry you must know all. Do you remember, in the heat of my excitement yesterday, telling you you had no right to the title you bear? In one sense I spoke the truth. Your father—" she gasped and paused.
"My father?" he breathlessly repeated.
"Your father is alive."
He sat and looked at her—stunned. What was she saying? His father alive, after all those years! and he not Sir Victor Catheron! He half rose—ashen pale.
"Lady Helena, what is this? My father alive—my father, whom for twenty years—since I could think at all—I have thought dead! What vile deception is here?"
"Sit down, Victor; you shall hear all. There is no vile deception—the deception, such as it is, has been by his own desire. Your father lives, but he is hopelessly insane."
He sat looking at her, pale, stern, almost confounded.
"He—he never recovered from the shock of his wife's dreadful death," went on her ladyship, her voice trembling. "Health returned after that terrible brain fever, but not reason. We took him away—the best medical aid everywhere was tried—all in vain. For years he was hopelessly, utterly insane, never violent, but mind and memory a total blank. He was incurable—he would never reclaim his title, but his bodily health was good, and he might live for many years. Why then deprive you of your rights, since in no way you defrauded him? The world was given to understand he was dead, and you, as you grew up, took his place as though the grave had indeed closed over him. But legally, as you see for yourself, you have no claim to it."
Still he sat gazing at her—still he sat silent, his lips compressed, waiting for the end.
"Of late years, gleams of reason have returned, fitfully and at uncertain times. On these rare occasions he has spoken of you, has expressed the desire that you should still be kept in ignorance, that he shall ever be to the world dead. You perceive, therefore, though it is my duty to tell you this, it need in no way alarm you, as he will never interfere with your claims."
Still he sat silent—a strange, intent listening expression on his face.
"You recollect the lady who came here yesterday," she continued. "Victor, looking far back into the past, have you no recollection of some one, fair and young, who used to bend over you at night, hear you say your baby prayers, and sing you to sleep? Try and think."
He bent his head in assent.
"I remember," he answered.
"Do you recall how she looked—has her face remained in your memory?"
"She had dark eyes and hair, and was handsome. I remember no more."
She looked at him wistfully.
"Victor, have you no idea who that woman was—none?"
"None," he replied coldly. "How could I, since she was not my mother.I never heard her name. Who was she?"
"She was the lady you saw yesterday."
"Who was the lady I saw yesterday?"
She paused a moment, then replied, still with that wistful glance on his face:
"Inez Catheron."
"What?" Again he half-started to his feet. "The woman who was my mother's rival and enemy, who made her life wretched, who was concerned in her murder! Whomyouaided to escape from Chesholm jail! The woman who, directly or indirectly, is guilty of her death!"
"Sir Victor Catheron, how dare you!" Lady Helen also started to her feet, her face flushing with haughty anger. "I tell you Inez Catheron has been a martyr—not a murderess. She was your mother's rival, as she had a right to be—was she not your father's plighted wife, long before he ever saw Ethel Dobb? She was your mother's rival. It was her only fault, and her whole life has been spent in expiating it. Was it not atonement sufficient, that for the crime of another, she should be branded with life-long infamy, and banished forever from home and friends?"
"If the guilt was not hers it was her brother's, and she was privy to it," the young man retorted, with sullen coldness.
"Who are you, that you should say whether it was or not? The assassin is known to Heaven, and Heaven has dealt with him. Accuse no one—neither Juan Catheron nor his sister—all human judgment is liable to err. Of your mother's death Inez Catheron is innocent—by it her whole life has been blighted. To your father, that life has been consecrated. She has been his nurse, his companion, his more than sister or mother all those years.Iloved him, and I could not have done what she has done. He used her brutally—brutally I say—and her revenge has been life-long devotion and sacrifice. All those years she has never left him. She will never leave him until he dies."
She sank back in her seat, trembling, exhausted. He listened in growing wonder.
"You believe me?" she demanded imperiously.
"I believe you," he replied sadly. "My dear aunt, forgive me. I believe all you have said. Can I not see her and thank her too?"
"You shall see her. It is for that she has remained. Stay here; I will send her to you. She deserves your thanks, though all thanks are but empty and vain for such a life-long martyrdom as hers."
She left him hastily. Profound silence fell. He turned and looked out at the fast-falling rain, at the trees swaying in the fitful wind, at the dull, leaden sky. Was he asleep and dreaming? His father alive! He sat half dazed, unable to realize it.
"Victor!"
He had not heard the door open, he had not heard her approach, but she stood beside him. All in black, soft, noiseless black, a face devoid of all color; large, sad, soft eyes, and hair white as winter snow—that was the woman Sir Victor Catheron saw as he turned round. The face, with all its settled sadness and pallor, was still the face of a beautiful woman, and in weird contradiction to its youth and beauty, were the smooth bands of abundant hair—white as the hair of eighty. The deep, dusk eyes, once so full of pride and fire, looked at him with the tender, saddened light, long, patient suffering had wrought; the lips, once curved in haughtiest disdain, had taken the sweetness of years of hopeless pain. And so, after three-and-twenty years, Victor Catheron saw the woman, whose life his father's falsity and fickleness had wrecked.
"Victor!"
She held out her hand to him shyly, wistfully. The ban of murder had been upon her all these years. Who was to tell that in his inmost heart he too might not brand her as a murderess? But she need not have doubted. If any suspicion yet lingered in his mind, it vanished as he looked at her.
"Miss Catheron!" He grasped her hand, and held it between both his own. "I have but just heard all, for the first time, as you know. That my father lives—that to him you have nobly consecrated your life. He has not deserved it at your hands; let my father's son thank you with all his soul!"
"Ah, hush," she said softly. "I want no thanks. Your poor father! Aunt Helena has told you how miserably allhislife has been wrecked—a life once so full of promise."
"She has told me all, Miss Catheron."
"Not Miss Catheron," she interposed, with a smile that lit her worn face into youth and beauty; "not Miss Catheron, surely—Inez, Cousin Inez, if you will. It is twenty-three years—do you know it?—since any one has called me Miss Catheron before. You can't fancy how oddly it sounds."
He looked at her in surprise.
"You do not bear your own name? And yet I might have known it, lying as you still do—"
"Under the ban of murder." She shuddered slightly as she said it. "Yes, when I fled that dreadful night from Chesholm prison, and made my way to London, I left my name behind me. I took at first the name of Miss Black. I lived in dingy lodgings in that crowded part of London, Lambeth; and for the look of the thing, took in sewing. It was of all those years the most dreary, the most miserable and lonely time of my probation. I lived there four months; then came the time of your father's complete restoration to bodily health, and confirmation of the fear that his mind was entirely gone. What was to be done with him? Lady Helena was at a loss to know. There were private asylums, but she disliked the idea of shutting him up in one. He was perfectly gentle, perfectly harmless, perfectly insane. Lady Helena came to see me, and I, pining for the sight of a familiar face, sick and weary to death of the wretched neighborhood in which I lived, proposed the plan that has ever since been the plan of my life. Let Lady Helena take a house, retired enough to be safe, sufficiently suburban to be healthy; let her place Victor there with me; let Mrs. Marsh, my old friend and housekeeper at Catheron Royals, become my housekeeper once more; let Hooper the butler take charge of us, and let us all live together. I thought then, and I think still, it was the best thing for him and for me that could have been suggested. Aunt Helena acted upon it at once; she found a house, on the outskirts of St. John's Wood—a large house, set in spacious grounds, and inclosed by a high wall, called 'Poplar Lodge.' It suited us in every way; it combined all the advantages of town and country. She leased it from the agent for a long term of years, for a 'Mr. and Mrs. Victor,' Mr. Victor being in very poor health. Secretly and by night we removed your father there, and since the night of his entrance he has never passed the gates. From the first—in the days of my youth and my happiness—my life belonged to him; it will belong to him to the end. Hooper and Marsh are with me still, old and feeble now; and of late years I don't think I have been unhappy."
She sighed and looked out at the dull, rain-beaten day. The young man listened in profound pity and admiration. Not unhappy! Branded with the deadliest crime man can commit or the law punish—an exile, a recluse, the life-long companion of an insane man and two old servants! No wonder that at forty her hair was gray—no wonder all life and color had died out of that hopeless face years ago. Perhaps his eyes told her what was passing in his mind; she smiled and answered that look.
"I have not been unhappy, Victor; I want you to believe it. Your father was always more to me than all the world beside—he is so still. He is but the wreck of the Victor I loved, and yet I would rather spend my life by his side than elsewhere on earth. And I was not quite forsaken. Aunt Helena often came and brought you. It seems but yesterday since I had you in my arms rocking you asleep, and now—and now they tell me you are going to be married."
The sensitive color rose over his face for a second, then faded, leaving him very pale.
"I was going to be married," he answered slowly, "but she does not know this. My father lives—the title and inheritance are his, not mine. Who is to tell what she may say now?"
The dark, thoughtful eyes looked at him earnestly.
"Does she love you?" she asked; "this Miss Darrell? I need hardly inquire whetheryoulove her."
"I love her so dearly that if I lose her—" He paused and turned his face away from her in the gray light. "I wish I had known this from the first; I ought to have known. It may have been meant in kindness, but I believe it was a mistake. Heaven knows how it will end now."
"You mean to say, then, that in the hour you lose your title and inheritance you also lose Miss Darrell? Is that it?"
"I have said nothing of the kind. Edith is one of the noblest, the truest of women; but can't you see—it looks as though she had been deceived, imposed upon. The loss of title and wealth would make a difference to any woman on earth."
"Very little to a woman who loves, Victor. I hope—I hope—this young girl loves you?"
Again the color rose over his face—again he turned impatiently away.
"Shewilllove me," he answered; "she has promised it, and EdithDarrell is a girl to keep her word."
"So," Miss Catheron said, softly and sadly, "it is the old French proverb over again, 'There is always one who loves, and one who is loved.' She has owned to you that she is not in love with you, then? Pardon me, Victor, but your happiness is very near to me."
"She has owned it," he answered, "with the rare nobility and candor that belongs to her. Such affection as mine will win its return—'love begets love,' they say. Itmust."
"Not always, Victor—ah, not always, else what a happy womanIhad been! But surely she cares for no one else?"
"She cares for no one else," he answered, doggedly enough, but in his inmost heart that never-dying jealousy of Charley Stuart rankled. "She cares for no one else—she has told me so, and she is pride, and truth, and purity itself. If I lose her through this, then this secret of insanity will have wrecked forever still another life."
"If she is what you picture her," Inez said steadily, "no loss of rank or fortune would ever make her give you up. But you are not to lose either—you need not even tell her, if you choose."
"I can have no secrets from my plighted wife—Edith must know all. But the secret will be as safe with her as with me."
"Very well," she said quietly; "you know what the result will be if by any chance 'Mrs. Victor' and Inez Catheron are discovered to be one. But it shall be exactly as you please. Your father is as dead to you, to all the world, as though he lay in the vaults of Chesholm church, by your mother's side."
"My poor mother! my poor, murdered, unavenged mother! Inez Catheron, you are a noble woman—a brave woman; was it well to aid your brother to escape?—was it well, for the sake of saving the Catheron honor and the Catheron name, to permit a most cruel and cowardly murder to go unavenged?"
What was it that looked up at him out of her eyes? Infinite pity, infinite sorrow, infinite pain.
"My brother," she repeated softly, as if to herself; "poor Juan! he was the scapegoat of the family always. Yes, Sir Victor, it was a cruel and cowardly murder, and yet I believe in my soul we did right to screen the murderer from the world. It is in the hands of the Almighty—there let it rest."
There was a pause—then:
"I shall return with you to London and see my father," he said, as one who claims a right.
"No," she answered firmly; "it is impossible. Stay! Hear me out—it is your father's own wish."
"My father's wish! But—"
"He cannot express a wish, you would say. Of late years, Victor, at wide intervals, his reason has returned for a brief space—all the worse for him."
"The worse for him!" The young man looked at her blankly. "MissCatheron, do you mean to say it is better for him to be mad?"
"Much better—such madness as his. He does not think—he does not suffer. Memory to him is torture; he loved your mother, Victor—and he lost her—terribly lost her. With memory returns the anguish and despair of that loss as though it were but yesterday. If you saw him as I see him, you would pray as I do, that his mind might be blotted out forever."
"Good Heaven! this is terrible."
"Life is full of terrible things—tragedies, secrets—this is one of them. In these rare intervals of sanity he speaks of you—it is he who directed, in case of your marriage, that you should be told this much—that you are not to be brought to see him, until—"
She paused.
"Until—"
"Until he lies upon his death-bed. That day will be soon, Victor—soon, soon. Those brief glimpses of reason and memory have shortened life. What he suffers in these intervals no words of mine can tell. On his death-bed you are to see him—not before; and then you shall be told the story of your mother's death. No, Victor, spare me now—all I can tell you I have told. I return home by the noon-day train; and, before I go, I should like to see this girl who is to be your wife. See, I will remain by this window, screened by the curtain. Can you not fetch her by some pretence or other beneath it, that I may look and judge for myself?"
"I can try," he said, turning to go. "I have your consent to tell her my father is alive? I will tell her no more—it is not necessary she should knowyouare his keeper."
"That much you may tell her—it is her right. When I have seen her, come to me and say good-by."
"I shall not say good-by until I say it at Chester Station. Of course, I shall see you off. Wait here; if Edith is able to come out you shall see her. She kept her room this morning with headache."
He left her, half-dazed with what he had heard. He went to the drawing-room—the Stuarts and Captain Hammond were there—not Edith.
"Has Edith come down?" he asked. "I wish to speak to her for a moment."
"Edith is prowling about in the rain, somewhere, like an uneasy ghost," answered Trixy; "no doubt wet feet, and discomfort, and dampness generally are cures for headache; or, perhaps, she's looking foryou."
He hardly waited to hear her out before he started in pursuit. As if favored by fortune, he caught a glimpse of Edith's purple dress among the trees in the distance. She had no umbrella, and was wandering about pale and listless in the rain.
"Edith," Sir Victor exclaimed, "out in all this downpour without an umbrella? You will get your death of cold."
"I never take cold," she answered indifferently. "I always liked to run out in the rain ever since I was a child. I must be an amphibious sort of animal, I think. Besides, the damp air helps my headache."
He drew her hand within his arm and led her slowly in the direction of the window where the watcher stood.
"Edith," he began abruptly, "I have news for you. To call it bad news would sound inhuman, and yet it has half-stunned me. It is this—my father is alive."
"Sir Victor!"
"Alive, Edith—hopelessly insane, but alive. That is the news Lady Helena and one other, have told me this morning. It has stunned me; I repeat—is it any wonder? All those years I have thought him dead, and to-day I discover that from first to last I have been deceived."
She stood mute with surprise. His father alive—madness in the family. Truly it would have been difficult for Sir Victor or any one else to call this good news. They were directly beneath the window. He glanced up—yes, a pale face gleamed from behind the curtain, gazing down at that other pale face by Sir Victor's side. Very pale, very set just now.
"Then if your father is alive,heis Sir Victor and not you?"
Those were the first words she spoke; her tone cold, her glance unsympathetic.
His heart contracted.
"He will never interfere with my claim—they assure me of that. Alive in reality, he is dead, to the world. Edith, would it make any difference—if I lost title and estate, would I also loseyou?"
The beseeching love in his eyes might have moved her, but just at present she felt as though a stone lay in her bosom instead of a heart.
"I am not a sentimental sort of girl, Sir Victor," she answered steadily. "I am almost too practical and worldly, perhaps. And I must own it would make a difference. I have told you I am not in love with you—as yet—you have elected to take me and wait for that. I tell you now truthfully, if you were not Sir Victor Catheron, I would not marry you. It is best I should be honest, best I should not deceive you. You are a thousand times too good for so mercenary a creature as I am, and if you leave me it will only be serving me right. I don't want to break my promise, to draw back, but I feel in the mood for plain speaking this morning. If you feel that you can't marry me on those terms—and I don't deserve that you should—now is the time to speak. No one will be readier than I to own that it serves me right."
He looked and listened, pale to the lips.
"Edith, in Heaven's name, do youwishme to give you up?"
"No, I wish nothing of the sort. I have promised to marry you, and I am ready to keep that promise; but if you expect love or devotion from me, I tell you frankly I have neither to give. If you are willing still to take me, and"—smiling—"I see you are—I am still ready to be your wife—your true and faithful wife from the first—your loving wife, I hope, in the end."
They said no more. He led her back to the house, then left her. He hastened to Miss Catheron, more sombre even than when he had quitted her.
"Well," he said briefly, "you saw her?"
"I saw her. It is a beautiful face, a proud face, a truthful face, and yet—"
"Go on," he said impatiently. "Don't try to spare me. I am growing accustomed to unpleasant truths."
"I may be wrong, but something in her face tells me she does not love you, and," under her breath, "never will."
"It will come in time. With or without love, she is willing to be my wife—that is happiness enough for the present."
"You told her all?"
"I told her my father was alive and insane—no more. It will make no difference in our plans—none. We are to be married the first of September. The secret is safe with her."
The door opened, and Lady Helena came hastily in.
"If you wish to catch the 12.50 train, Inez," she said, "you must go at once. It is a long drive from this to the station. The brougham is waiting—shall I accompany you?"
"I will accompany her," said Sir Victor. "You had better return to our guests. They will begin to feel themselves neglected."
Miss Catheron left the room. In five minutes she reappeared, closely veiled, as when he had met her on the stairs. The adieux were hastily made. He gave her his arm and led her down to the close brougham. As they passed before the drawing-room windows, Miss Stuart uttered an exclamation:
"Oh! I say! where is Sir Victor going in the rain, and who is the dismal-looking lady in black? Edith, who is it?Youought to know."
"I don't know," Edith answered briefly, not looking up from her book.
"Hasn't Sir Victor told you?"
"I haven't asked Sir Victor."
"Oh, you haven't, and he hasn't told? Well, all I have to say is, that whenI'mengaged I hope the object of my affections will keep no secrets from me."
"As if he could!" murmurs Captain Hammond.
"I declare, he is going off with her. Edith, do come and look. There! they are driving away together, as fast as they can go."
But Edith never stirred. If she felt the slightest curiosity on the subject, her face did not show it.
They drove rapidly through the rain, and barely caught the train at that. He placed her hurriedly in an empty carriage, a moment before it started. As it flew by he caught one last glimpse of a veiled face, and a hand waving farewell. Then the train and the woman were out of sight.
Like a man who walks in his sleep, Sir Victor Catheron turned, re-entered the brougham, and was driven home.
Three days after, on Thursday, the fifth of June, Lady Helena Powyss gave a very large dinner-party, followed by a ball in honor of her American guests. When it is your good fortune to number half a county among your friends, relatives, and acquaintances, it is possible to be at once numerous and select. The creme de la creme of Cheshire assembled in Lady Helena's halls of dazzling light, to do honor to Sir Victor Catheron's bride-elect.
For the engagement had been formally announced, and was the choice bit of gossip, with which the shire regaled itself. Sir Victor Catheron was following in the footsteps of his father, and was about to bring to Catheron Royals one of the lower orders as its mistress. It was the Dobb blood no doubt cropping up—these sort of mesallianceswilltell. An American, too—a governess, a poor relation of some common rich people from the States. The best county families, with daughters to marry, shook their heads. It was very sad—verysad, to see a good old name and a good old family degenerate in this way. But there was always a taint of madness in the Catheron blood—that accounted for a good deal. Poor Sir Victor—and poor Lady Helena.
But everybody came. They might be deeply shocked and sorry, but still Sir Victor CatheronwasSir Victor Catheron, the richest baronet in the county, and Catheron Royals always a pleasant house to visit—the reigning Lady Catheron always a desirable acquaintance on one's visiting-list. Nobody acknowledged, of course, they went from pure, downright curiosity, to see this manoeuvring American girl, who had taken Sir Victor Catheron captive under the aristocratic noses of the best-born, best-bred, best-blooded young ladies in a circuit of twenty miles.
The eventful night came—the night of Edith's ordeal. Even Trix was a little nervous—only a little—is not perfect self-possession the normal state of American young ladydom? Lady Helena was quite pale in her anxiety. The girl was handsome beyond dispute, thoroughbred as a young countess, despite her birth and bringing up in a New England town and Yankee boarding-house, with pride enough for a princess of forty quarterings,buthow would she come forth from the fiery furnace of all those pitiless eyes, sharpened to points to watch for gaucheries and solecisms of good breeding—from the merciless tongues that would hang, draw, and quarter her, the instant their owners were out of the house.
"Don'tyou feel nervous, Dithy?" asked Trix, almost out of patience at last with Edith's serene calm. "I do—horribly. And Lady Helena has got a fit of the fidgets that will bring her gray hairs to an early grave, if this day lasts much longer. Ain't you afraid—honor bright?"
Edith Darrell lifted her dark, disdainful eyes. She sat reading, while the afternoon wore on, and Trixy fussed and fluttered about the room.
"Afraid of the people who are coming here to-night—is that what you mean? Not a whit! I know as well as you do, they are coming to inspect and find fault with Sir Victor Catheron's choice, to pity him, and call me an adventuress. I know also that any one of these young ladies would have married him, and said 'Thank you for asking,' if he had seen fit to choose them. I have my own pride and Sir Victor's good taste to uphold to-night, and I will uphold them. I think"—she lifted her haughty, dark head, and glanced, with a half-conscious smile, in the pier-glass opposite—"I think I can bear comparison by lamplight with any of these 'daughters of a hundred earls,' such as—Lady Gwendoline Drexel for instance."
"By lamplight," Trix said, ignoring the rest of her speech. "Ah, yes, that's the worst of it, Edith; you dark people always light up well. And Lady Gwendoline Drexel—I wonder what Lady Gwendoline will wear to-night? I should like to be the best-dressed young lady at the ball. Do you know, Dith," spitefully this, "I think Charley is quite struck with Lady Gwendoline. You noticed, I suppose, the attention he paid her the evening we met, and then he has been to Drexel Court by invitation. Pa is most anxious, I know. Money will be no object, you know, with Charley, and really it would be nice to have a titled sister-in-law. 'My sister, Lady Gwendoline Stuart,' will sound very well in New York, won't it? It would be a very suitable match for Charley."
"A most suitable match," Miss Darrell repeated; "age included. She is ten years his senior if a day; but where true love exists, what does a trifle of years on either side signify? He has money—she has rank. He has youth and good looks—she has high birth and a handle to her name. As you say, Trixy, a most suitable match!"
And then Miss Darrell went back to her book, but the slender, black brows were meeting in a steady frown, that quite spoiled her beauty—no doubt at something displeasing in the pages.
"But you mustn't sit here all day," broke in Trix again; "it's high time you were up in your dressing-room. What are you going to wear, Dith?"
"I have not decided yet. I don't much care; it doesn't much matter. I have decided to look my best in anything."
She arose and sauntered out of the room, and was seen no more, until the waxlights blazed from end to end of the great mansion and the June dusk had deepened into dewy night. Then, as the roll of carriages came without ceasing along the drive, she descended, arrayed for battle, to find her impatient slave and adorer awaiting her at the foot of the grand stairway. She smiled upon him her brightest, most beaming smile, a smile that intoxicated him at sight.
"Will I do, Sir Victor?" she asked.
Would she do? He looked at her as a man may look half dazzled, at the sun. He could not have told you what she wore, pink and white clouds it seemed to him—he only knew two brown, luminous, laughing eyes were looking straight into his, and turning his brain with their spell.
"You are sure I will do? You are sure you will not be ashamed of me to-night?" her laughing voice asked again.
Ashamed of her—ashamed! He laughed aloud at the stupendous joke, as he drew her arm within his, and led her into the thronged rooms, as some favored subject may once in his life lead in a queen.
Perhaps there was excuse for him. "I shall look my best in anything," she had said, in her disdain, and she had kept her word. She wore a dress that seemed alternately composed of white tulle and blush-roses; she had roses in her rich, dark hair, hair always beautifully worn; Sir Victor's diamond-betrothal ring shone on her finger; round her arching throat she wore a slender line of yellow gold, a locket set with brilliants attached. The locket had been Lady Helena's gift, and held Sir Victor's portrait. That was her ball array, and she looked as though she were floating in her fleecy white draperies, her perfumery, roses, and sparkling diamonds. The dark eyes outshone the diamonds, a soft flush warmed either cheek. Yes, she was beautiful; so beautiful that saner men than her accepted lover, might have been pardoned if for a moment they lost their heads.
Lady Helena Powyss, in sweeping moire and jewels, receiving her guests, looked at her and drew one long breath of great relief. She might have spared herself all her anxious doubts and fears—low-born and penniless as she was, Sir Victor Catheron's bride would do Sir Victor Catheron honor to-night.
Trix was there—Trix resplendent in pearl silk with a train half the length of the room, pearl silk, point lace, white-camelias, and Neapolitan corals and cameos, incrusted with diamonds—Trix, in all the finery six thousand dollars can buy, drew a long breath of great and bitter envy.
"If one wore the Koh-i-noor and Coronation Robes," thought Miss Stuart sadly, "she would shine one down. She is dazzling to-night. Captain Hammond," tapping that young warrior with her point-lace fan, "don'tyou think Edith is without exception the most beautiful and elegant girl in the rooms?"
And the gallant captain bows profoundly, and answers with a look that points the speech:
"Withoneexception, Miss Beatrix, only one."
Charley is there, and perhaps there can be no doubt about it, that Charley is, without exception, far and away, the best looking man. Charley gazes at his cousin for an instant on the arm of her proud and happy lover, radiant and smiling, the centre of all that is best in the room. She lifts her dark, laughing eyes as it chances, and brown and gray meet full. Then he turns away to a tall, languid rather passive lady, who is talking slowly by his side.
"Is Miss Darrell really his cousin? Really? How extremely handsome she is, and how perfectly infatuated Sir Victor seems. Poor Sir Victor! What a pity there is insanity in the family—insanity is such a very shocking thing. How pretty Miss Stuart is looking this evening. She has heard—is it true—can Mr. Stuart inform her—areallAmerican girls handsome?"
And Charley—as Captain Hammond has done—bows, and looks, and replies:
"I used to think so, Lady Gwendoline. I have seen English girls since, and think differently."
Oh, the imbecile falsehoods of society! He is thinking, as he says it, how pallid and faded poor Lady Gwendoline is looking, in her dingy green satin and white Brussels lace overdress, her emeralds and bright golden hair—most beautiful and most expensive shade to be had in London. He is thinking how the Blanc de Perle and rouge vegetal is showing on her three-and-thirty-year-old face, and what his life would be like if he listened to his father and married her. He shudders inwardly and gives it up—"that way madness lies," and while there is a pistol left, wherewith to blow his brains out, he can still hope to escape a worse fate.
But Lady Gwendoline, freighted with eleven seasons' experience, and growing seedy and desperate, clings to him as the drowning cling to straws. She is the daughter of a peer, but there are five younger sisters, all plain and all portionless. Her elder sister, who chaperones her to-night, is the wife of a rich and retired manufacturer, Lady Portia Hampton. The rich and retired manufacturer has purchased Drexel Court, and it is Lady Portia's painful duty to try and marry her sisters off.
The ball is a great success for Miss Edith Darrell. The men rave about her; the women may sneer, but they must do it covertly; her beauty and her grace, her elegance and high breeding, not the most envious dare dispute. Music swells and floats deliciously—scores are suitors for her hand in the dance. The flush deepens on her dusk cheeks, the streaming light in her starry eyes—she is dangerously brilliant to-night. Sir Victor follows in her train whenever his duties allow him; when he dances with others his eyes follow his heart, and go after her. There is but one in all those thronged rooms for him—one who is his idol—his darling—the pride, the joy, the desire of his life.
"My dear, I am proud of you to-night," Lady Helena whispers once. "You surpass yourself—you are lovely beyond compare. You do us all credit."
And Edith Darrell's haughty eyes look up for a moment and they are flashing through tears. She lifts the lady's hand with exquisite grace, and kisses it. Then smiles chase the tears, and she is gone on the arm of some devoted cavalier. Once—only once, she dances with Charley. She has striven to avoid him—no, not that either—it ishewho has avoided her. She has seen him—let her be surrounded by scores, she has seen him whispering with Lady Gwendoline, dancing with Lady Gwendoline, fanning Lady Gwendoline, flirting with Lady Gwendoline. It is Lady Gwendoline he leads to supper, and it is after supper, with the enchanting strains of a Strauss waltz filling the air, that he comes up and asks her for that dance.
"I am sure I deserve it for my humility," he says plaintively. "I have stood in the background, humbly and afar off, and given you up to my betters. Surely, after all the bitter pills I have been swallowing, I deserveonesugar-plum."
She laughs—glances at Sir Victor, making his way toward her, takes his arm rather hurriedly, and moves off.
"Is Lady Gwendoline a pill, or a sugar-plum?" she asks. "You certainly seem to have had an overdose of her."
"I owe Lady Gwendoline my deepest thanks," he answered gravely. "Her efforts to keep me amused this evening, have been worthy of a better cause. If the deepest gratitude of a too-trusting heart," says Charley, laying his hand on the left side of his white waistcoat, "be any reward for such service, it is hers."
They float away. To Edith it is the one dance of the night. She hardly knows whether she whirls in air or on the waxed floor; she only knows that it is like heaven, that the music is celestial, and that it is Charley's arm that is clasping her close. Will she ever waltz with him again, she wonders, and she feels, feels in her inmost heart, that she is sinning against her affianced husband in waltzing with him now. But it issodelicious—what a pity most of the delicious things of earth should be wrong. If it could only last forever—forever! And while she thinks it, it stops.
"O Charley! thatwasa waltz!" she says, leaning on him heavily, and panting; "no one else has my step as you have it."
"Let us trust that Sir Victor will learn it," he responds coolly; "here he comes now. It was a charming waltz, Dithy, but charming things must end. Your lawful proprietor approaches; to your lawful proprietor I resign you."
He was perfectly unflushed, perfectly unexcited. He bows, smiles, yields her to Sir Victor, and saunters away. Five seconds later he is bending over Lady Gwendoline's chair, whispering in the pink, patrician ear resting against the glistening, golden chignon. Edith looks once—in her heart she hates Lady Gwendoline—looks once, and looks no more.
And as the serene June morning dawns, and larks and thrushes pipe in the trees, Lady Helena's dear five hundred friends, sleepy and pallid, get into their carriages and go home.
The middle of the day is past before one by one they straggle down. Breakfast awaits each newcomer, hot and tempting. Trix eats hers with a relish. Trix possesses one of the chief elements of perpetual human happiness—an appetite that never fails, a digestion that, in her own metaphorical American language, "never goes back on her." But Edith looks fagged and spiritless. If people are to be supernaturally brilliant and bright, dashing and fascinating all night long, people must expect to pay the penalty next day, when lassitude and reaction set in.
"My poor Edie!" Mr. Charles Stuart remarks, compassionately, glancing at the wan cheeks and lustreless eyes, as he lights his after-breakfast cigar, "you do look most awfully used up. What a pity for their peace of mind, some of your frantic adorers of last night can't see you now. Let me recommend you to go back to bed and try an S. and B."
"An 'S. and B.'?" Edith repeats vaguely.
"Soda and Brandy. It's the thing, depend upon it, for such a case as yours. I've been seedy myself before now, and know what I'm talking about. I'll mix it for you, if you like."
There is a copy of Tennyson, in blue and gold, beside Miss Darrell, and Miss Darrell's reply is to fling it at Mr. Stuart's head. It is a last effort of expiring nature; she sinks back exhausted among her cushions. Charley departs to enjoy his Manila out under the waving trees, and Sir Victor, looking fresh and recuperated, strolls in and bends over her.
"My dear Edith," he says, "how pale you are this morning—how tired you look. If one ball is going to exhaust you like this, how will you stand the wear and tear of London seasons in the blissful time to come?"
She does not blush—she turns a trifle impatiently away from him and looks out. She can see Charley and Hammond smoking sociably together in the sunny distance.
"I will grow used to it, I dare say. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.'"
"Have you had breakfast?"
"I made an effort and failed. I watched Trix eat hers, however, and that refreshed me quite as well. It was invigorating only to look at her."
He smiles and bends lower, drawing one long brown silken tress of hair fondly through his fingers, feeling as though he would like to stoop and kiss the pale, weary face. But Trix is over yonder, pretending to read, and kissing is not to be thought of.
"I am going over to Catheron Royals," he whispered; "suppose you come—the walk will do you good. I am giving orders about the fitting up of the old place. Did I tell you the workmen came yesterday?"
"Yes; you told me."
"Shall I ring for your hat and parasol? Do come, Edith."
"Excuse me, Sir Victor," Edith answers, with an impatient motion, "I feel too tired—too lazy, which ever you like—to stir. Some other day I will go with pleasure—just now I feel like lying here and doing thedolce far niente. Don't let me detain you, however."
He turns to leave her with a disappointed face. Edith closes her eyes and takes an easier position among the pillows. The door closes behind him; Trix flings down her book and bursts forth:
"Of all the heartless, cold-blooded animals it has ever been my good fortune to meet, commend me to Edith Darrell!"
The dark eyes unclose and look up at her.
"My dear Trix! what's the matter with you now? What new enormity haveI committed?"
"Oh, nothing new—nothing new at all," is Trixy's scornful response; "it is quite in keeping with the rest of your conduct. To be purely and entirely selfish is the normal state of the future Lady Catheron! Poor Sir Victor! who has won you. Poor Charley! who has lost you. I hardly know which I pity most."
"I don't see that you need waste your precious pity on either," answered Edith, perfectly unmoved by Miss Stuart's vituperation; "keep it for me. I shall make Sir Victor a very good wife as wives go, and for Charley—well, Lady Gwendoline is left to console him."
"Yes, of course, there is Lady Gwendoline. O Edith! Edith! what are you made of? Flesh and blood like other people, or waxwork, with a stone for a heart? How can you sell yourself, as you are going to do? Sir Victor Catheron is no more to you than his hall-porter, and yet you persist in marrying him. You love my brother and yet you hand him over to Lady Gwendoline. Come, Edith, be honest for once; you love Charley, don't you?"
"It is rather late in the day for such tender confessions as that," Edith replies, with a reckless sort of laugh; "but yes—if the declaration does you any good, Trix—I love Charley."
"And you give him up! Miss Darrell, I give you up as a conundrum I can't solve. Rank and title are all very well—nobody thinks more of them than I do; but ifIloved a man," cried Trix, with kindling eyes and glowing cheeks, "I'd marry him! Yes; I would, though he were a beggar."
Edith looked up at her kindly, with a smothered sigh.
"I believe you, Trix; but then you are different from me." She half-raised herself, looking dreamily out on the sunlit prospect of lawn, and coppice, and woodland. "Here it is: I love Charley, but I love myself better. O Trix, child, don't let us talk about it; I am tired, and my head aches." She pushed back the heavy, dark hair wearily off her temples with both hands. "I am what you call me, a selfish wretch—a heartless little brute—and I am going to marry Sir Victor Catheron. Pity him, if you like, poor fellow! for he loves me with his whole heart, and he is a brave and loyal gentleman. But don't pity your brother, my dear; believe me, he doesn't need it. He's a good fellow, Charley, and he likes me, but he won't break his heart or commit suicide while he has a cigar left."
"Here he comes!" exclaimed Trix, "and I believe he has heard us."
"Let him come," Edith returns, lying listlessly back among her cushions once more. "It doesn't matter if he has. It will be no news tohim."
"It is a pity you should miss each other, though," Trix says sarcastically, as she turns to go; "such thorough philosophers both; I believe you were made for each other, and, as far as easy-going selfishness is concerned, there is little to choose between you. It's a thousand pities Sir Victor can't hear all this."
"He might if he liked," is Edith's answer. "I shouldn't care. Charley!" as Charley comes in and Trix goes out, "have you been eavesdropping? Don't deny it, sir, if you have!"
Charley takes a position in an easy-chair some yards distant, and looks at her lying there, languid and lovely.
"I have been eavesdropping—I never deny my small vices. Hammond left me to go to the stables, and, strolling under the window, I overheard you and Trix. Open confession is beneficial, no doubt; but, my dear cousin, you really shouldn't make it in so audible a tone. It might have been Sir Victor instead of me."
She says nothing. The sombre look he has learned to know is in her dusk eyes, on her dark, colorless face.
"Poor Sir Victor!" he goes on; "he loves you—not a doubt of that, Dithy—to the depths of idiocy, where you know so well how to cast your victims; but hard hit as he is, I wonderwhathe would say if he heard all this!"
"You might tell him, Charley," Edith says. "I shouldn't mind much, and hemightjilt me—who can tell? I think it would do us both good. You could say, 'Look here: don't marry Edith Darrell, Sir Victor; she isn't worthy of you or any good man. She is full of pride, vanity, ambition, selfishness, ill-temper, cynicism, and all uncharitableness. She isblaseat nineteen—think what she will be at nine-and-twenty. She doesn't love you—I know her well enough to be sure she never will, partly because a heart was left out in her hard anatomy, partly because—because all the liking she ever had to give, went long ago to somebody else.' Charley, I think he would give me up, and I'd respect him for it, if he knew that. Tell him, if you have the courage, and when he casts me off, come to me and make me marry you. You can do it, you know; and when the honeymoon is over—when poverty stalks in at the door and love flies out of the window—when we hate each other as only ill-assorted wives and husbands ever hate—let the thought that we have done the 'All for love, and the world well lost' business, to the bitter end, console us."
She laughs recklessly; she feels reckless enough to say anything, do anything, this morning. Love, ambition, rank, wealth—what empty baubles they all look, seen through tired eyes the day after a ball!
He sits silent, watching her thoughtfully.
"I don't understand you, Edith," he says. "I feel like asking you the same question Trix did.Whydo you marry Sir Victor?"
"Why do I marry him?" she repeated. "Well—a little because of his handsome face and stately bearing, and the triumph of carrying off a prize, for which your Lady Gwendoline and half a score more have battled. A little because he pleads so eloquently, and loves me as no other mortal man did, or ever will; and oh! Charley, a great deal because he is Sir Victor Catheron of Catheron Royals, with a rent-roll of twenty thousand a year, and more, and a name that is older than Magna Charta. If there be any virtue in truth, there—you have it, plain, unvarnished. I like him—who could help it; but love him—no!" She clasped her hands above her head, and gazed dreamily out at the sparkling sunlit scene. "I shall be very fond of him, very proud of him, when I am his wife—that I know. He will enter Parliament, and make speeches, and write political pamphlets, and redress the wrongs of the people. He's the sort of man politicians are made of—the sort of man a wife can be proud of. And on my wedding day, or perhaps a day or two before, you and I shall shake hands, sir, and see each other no more."
"No more?" he repeats.
"Well, for a year or two at least, until all the folly of the past can be remembered only as a thing to be laughed at. Or until there is a tall, handsome Mrs. Stuart, or, more likely, a Lady Gwendoline Stuart. And Charley," speaking hurriedly now, and not meeting the deep gray eyes she knows are fixed upon her, "the locket with my picture and the letters—you won't want themthen—suppose you let me have them back."
"I won't want them then, certainly," Charley responds, "if by 'then' you mean when I am the husband of the tall, fascinating Mrs. Stuart or Lady Gwendoline. But as I have not that happiness yet, suppose you allow me to retain them until I have. Sir Victor will never know, and he would not mind much if he did. We are cousins, are we not? and what more natural than that cousins once removed should keep each other's pictures? By the bye, I see you still wear that little trumpery pearl and turquoise brooch I gave you, with my photo at the back. Give it to me, Edie; turquoise does not become your brown skin, my dear, and I'll give you a ruby pin with Sir Victor's instead. Perhaps, as turquoise does become her, Lady Gwendoline will accept this as love's first timid offering. The rubies will do twice as well for you."
He stretched out his hand to unfasten it. She sprang back, her cheeks flushing at his touch.
"You shall not have it! Neither Lady Gwendoline nor any one else shall wear it, and, married or single,Ishall keep it to my dying day if I choose. Charley—what do you mean, sir! How dare you? Let me go!"
For he had risen suddenly and caught her in his arms, looking steadily down into her dark eyes, with a gaze she would not meet. Whilst he held her, whilst he looked at her, he was her master, and he knew it.
"Charley, let me go!" she pleaded. "If any one came in; the servants, or—or—Sir Victor."
He laughed contemptuously, and held her still.
"Yes, Edith; suppose Sir Victor came in and saw his bride-elect with a sacrilegious arm about her waist? Suppose I told him the truth—that you are mine, not his: mine by the love that alone makes marriage holy; his for his title and his rent-roll—bought and sold. By Heaven! I half wish he would!"
Was this Charley—Charley Stuart?
She caught her breath—her pride and her insolence dropping from her—only a girl in the grasp of the man she loves. In that moment, if he had willed it, he could have made her forego her plight, and pledge herself to be his wholly, and he knew it.
"Edith," he said, "as I stand and look at you, in your beauty and your selfishness, I hardly know whether I love or despise you most. I could make you marry me—makeyou, mind—but you are not worth it. Go!" He opened his arms contemptuously and released her. "You'll not be a bad wife for Sir Victor, I dare say, as fashionable wives go. You'll be that ornament of society, a married flirt, but you'll never run away with his dearest friend, and make a case for the D. C. 'All for love and the world well lost,' is no motto of yours, my handsome cousin. A week ago I envied Sir Victor with all my heart—to-day I pity him with all my soul!"
He turned to go, for once in his life, thoroughly aroused, passionate love; passionate rage at war within him. She had sunk back upon the sofa, her face hidden in her hands, humbled, as in all her proud life she had never been humbled before. Her silence, her humility touched him. He heard a stifled sob, and all his hot anger died out in pained remorse.
"Oh, forgive me, Edith!" he said, "forgive me. It may be cruel, but I had to speak. It is the first, it will be the last time. I am selfish, too, or I would never have pained you—better never hear the truth than that the hearing should make you miserable. Don't cry, Edith; I can't bear it. Forgive me, my cousin—they are the last tears I will ever make you shed."
The words he meant to soothe her, hurt more deeply than the words he meant to wound. "They are the last tears I will ever make you shed!" An eternal farewell was in the words. She heard the door open, heard it close, and knew that her love and her life had parted in that instant forever.
Two weeks later, as June's golden days were drawing to a close, five of Lady Helena's guests departed from Powyss Place. One remained behind. The Stuart family, with the devoted Captain Hammond in Trixy's train, went up to London; Miss Edith Darrell stayed behind.
Since the memorable day following the ball, the bride-elect of Sir Victor Catheron had dwelt in a sort of earthly purgatory, had lived stretched on a sort of daily rack. "How blessings brighten as they take their flight." She had given up Charley—had cast him off, had bartered herself in cold blood—for a title and an income. And now that he held her at her true value, that his love had died a natural death in contempt and scorn, her whole heart, her whole soul craved him with a sick longing that was like death. It was her daily torture and penance to see him, to speak to him, and note the cold scorn of his gray, tranquil eyes. Jealousy had been added to her other torments; he was ever by Lady Gwendoline's side of late—ever at Drexel Court. His father had set his heart upon the match; she was graceful and high-bred; it would end in a marriage, no doubt. There were times when she woke from her jealous anger to rage at herself.
"What a dog in the manger I grow," she said, with a bitter laugh. "I won't have him myself, and I cannot bear that any one else should have him. If he would only go away—if he only would—I cannot endure this much longer."
Truly she could not. She was losing flesh and color, waxing wan as a shadow. Sir Victor was full of concern, full of wonder and alarm. Lady Helena said little, but (being a woman) her sharp old eyes saw all.
"The sooner my guests go, the better," she thought; "the sooner she sees the last of this young man, the sooner health and strength will return."
Perhaps Charley saw too—the gray, tranquil eyes were very penetrating.It was he, at all events, who urged the exodus to London.
"Let us see a little London life in the season, governor," he said. "Lady Portia Hampton, andthatlot, are going. They'll introduce us to some nice people—so will Hammond. Rustic lanes and hawthorn ledges are all very pretty, but there's a possibility of their palling on depraved New York minds. I pine for stone and mortar, and the fog and smoke of London."
Whatever he may have felt, he bore it easily to all outward seeming, as the men who feel deepest mostly do. He could not be said to actually avoid her, but certainly since that afternoon in the drawing-room, they had never been for five seconds alone.
Mr. Stuart, senior, had agreed, with almost feverish eagerness, to the proposed change. Life had been very pleasant in Cheshire, with picnics, water-parties down the Dee, drives to show-places, lawn billiards, and croquet, but a month of it was enough. Sir Victor was immersed in his building projects and his lady-love; Lady Helena, ever since the coming and going of the lady in black, had not been the same. Powyss place was a pleasant house, but enough was enough. They were ready to say good-by and be off to "fresh fields and pastures new."
"And, my dear child," said Lady Helena to Edith, when the departure was fixed, "I think you had much better remain behind."
There was an emphasis in her tone, a meaning glance in her eye, that brought the conscious blood to the girl's cheek. Her eyes fell—her lips quivered for an instant—she made no reply.
"Certainly Edith will remain," Sir Victor interposed impetuously. "As if we could survive down here without her! And, of course, just at present it is impossible for me to leave. They don't need her half as much as we do—Miss Stuart has Hammond, Prince Charley has Gwendoline Drexel; Edith would only be in the way!"
"It is settled, then?" said Lady Helena again, watching Edith with a curiously intent look. "You remain?"
"I will remain," Edith answered, very lowly and without lifting her eyes.
"My own idea is," went on the young baronet confidentially, to his lady love, "that they are glad to be gone. Something seems to be the matter with Stuartpere—under a cloud, rather, just at present. Has it struck you, Dithy?"
He had caught the way of calling her by the pet name Trix and Charley used. She lifted her eyes abstractedly now, as he asked the question.
"Mr. Stuart? What did you say, Sir Victor? Oh—under a cloud. Well, yes, I have noticed it. I think it is something connected with his business in New York. In papa's last letter he alluded to it."
"In papa's last letter," Mr. Frederick Darrell had said this:
"One of their great financial crises, they tell me, is approaching in New York, involving many failures and immense loss. One of the most deeply involved, it is whispered, will be James Stuart. Ihaveheard he is threatened with ruin. Let us hope, however, this may be exaggerated. Once I fancied it would be a fine thing, a brilliant match, if my Edith married James Stuart's son. How much better Providence has arranged it! Once more, my dearest daughter, I congratulate you on the brilliant vista opening before you. Your step-mother, who desires her best love, never wearies of spreading the wonderful news that our little Edie is so soon to be the bride of a great English baronet."
Miss Darrell's straight black brows met in one frowning line as she perused this parental and pious epistle. The next instant it was torn into minute atoms, and scattered to the four winds of heaven.
There seemed to be some foundation for the news. Letters without end kept coming for Mr. Stuart; little boys bearing the ominous orange envelopes of the telegraph company, came almost daily to Powyss Place. After these letters and cable messages the gloom on Mr. Stuart's face deepened and darkened. He lost sleep, he lost appetite; some great and secret fear seemed preying upon him. What was it? His family noticed it, and inquired about his health. He rebuffed them impatiently; he was quite well—he wanted to be let alone—why the unmentionable-to-ears-polite need they badger him with questions? They held their peace and let him alone. That it in any way concerned commercial failure they never dreamed; to them the wealth of the husband and father was something illimitable—a golden river flowing from a golden ocean. That ruin could approach them never entered their wildest dreams.
He had gone to Edith one day and offered her a thousand-dollar check.
"For your trousseau, my dear," he had said. "It isn't what I expected to give you—what I would give you, if—" He gulped and paused. "Things have changed with me lately. You will accept this, Edie—it will at least buy your wedding-dress."
She had shrunk back, and refused—not proudly, or angrily—very humbly, but very firmly. From Charley's father she could never take a farthing now.
"No" she said, "I can't take it. Dear Mr. Stuart, I thank you all the same; you have given me more already than I deserve or can ever repay. I cannot take this. Sir Victor Catheron takes me as I am—poor, penniless. Lady Helena will give me a white silk dress and veil to be married in. For the rest, after my wedding-day, whatever my life may lack, it will not lack dresses."
He had replaced the check in his pocket-book, inwardly thankful, perhaps, that it had not been accepted. The day was past when a thousand dollars would have been but as a drop in the ocean to him.
The time of departure was fixed at length; and the moment itwasfixed, Trix flew upstairs, and into Edith's room, with the news.
"Oh, let us be joyful," sang Miss Stuart, waltzing in psalm time up and down the room; "we're off at last, the day after to-morrow, Dithy; so go pack up at once. It's been very jolly, and all that, down here, for the past four weeks, andyou'vehad a good time, I know; but I, for one, will be glad to hear the bustle and din of city life once more. One grows tired doing the pastoral and tooral-ooral—I mean truly rural—and craves for shops, and gaslight, and glitter, and crowds of human beings once more. Our rooms are taken at Langham's, Edie, and that blessed darling, Captain Hammond, goes with us. Lady Portia, Lady Gwendoline, and Lady Laura are coming also, and I mean to plunge headlong into the giddy whirl of dissipation, and mingle with the bloated aristocracy. Why don't you laugh? What are you looking so sulky about?"
"Am I looking sulky?" Edith said, with a faint smile. "I don't feel sulky. I sincerely hope you may enjoy yourself even more than you anticipate."
"Oh—you do!" said Trix, opening her eyes; "and how about yourself—don't you expect to enjoy yourself at all?"
"I would, no doubt, only—I am not going."
"Not going!" Thunderstruck, Trix repeats the words.
"No; it has been decided that I remain here. You won't miss me,Trix—you will have Captain Hammond."
"Captain Hammond may go hang himself. I wantyou, and you I mean to have. Let's sit down and reason this thing out. Now what new crotchet has got into your head? May I ask what your ladyship-elect means to do?"
"To remain quietly here until—until—you know."
"Oh, I know!" with indescribable scorn; "until you are raised to the sublime dignity of a baronet's wife. And you mean to mope away your existence down here for the next two months listening to love-making you don't carethatabout. Oh, no need to fire up; I know how much you care about it. And I say you shan't. Why, you are fading away to a shadow now under it. You shall come up to London with us and recuperate. Charley shall take you everywhere."
She saw her wince—yes, that was where the vital place lay. MissStuart ran on:
"The idea of living under the same roof for two mortal months with the young man you are going to marry! You're a great stickler for etiquette—I hope you don't callthatetiquette? Nobody ever heard of such a thing. I'm not sure but that it would be immoral. Of course, there's Lady Helena to play propriety, and there's the improvements at Catheron Royals to amuse you, and there's Sir Victor's endless 'lovering' to edify you, but still I say you shall come. You started with us, and you shall stay with us—you belong to us, not to him, until the nuptial knot is tied. I wouldn't give a fig for London without you. I should die of the dismals in a week."