CHAPTER XXXIXBURYING THE HATCHET
Lord and Lady Dunforth called again at the Langham the next morning, but found they had been forestalled by numerous other callers, whom Brownie was entertaining in the most charming manner.
She received his lordship with proud but respectful dignity, which, while it grieved him, yet it also excited his admiration that she should thus resent the injury he had done her.
One by one the other visitors departed, until at length they were left alone with the young couple.
After a few moments spent in a pleasant chat, Lady Dunforth whispered a few words in Brownie’s ear.
She smiled and nodded compliance, then, turning with inimitable tact to her husband, said:
“Adrian, Lady Dunforth is anxious to inspect the wedding wardrobe and gifts; will you attend her while I entertain his lordship? If you need any explanations Milly can make them.”
Adrian saw the point of all this, and rising he gave his arm to his grandmother, and conducted her from the room.
Brownie knew that this moment must come, and was grateful to the countess for so delicately opening the way for those explanations which were needful.
Lord Dunforth was glad to be left alone with her, yet man of the world though he was, he felt a terrible awkwardness stealing over him, and he scarcely knew how to break the ice.
It was a trying moment for the proud peer, but taking advantage of a pause in the conversation, he bent toward her, took one of her little soft hands in his, and asked, in eager, trembling tones:
“Can the child of my Meta’s care and love forgive an old man’s folly?”
Brownie’s lovely face crimsoned instantly, and the tears sprang unbidden to her eyes.
She had not expected any such humble apology from him. She thought he would be stately and dignified, and would yield his haughty spirit only so far as he could do so gracefully; and she had resolved to show him that a Douglas could be as proud as he; so she was wholly unprepared for anything so subdued as this.
“I have wronged you,” he went on, studying the beautiful face, “by judging you, without knowing you, and I have wronged Adrian in thinking that, with him, caste could ever outweigh love. He is a grand and noble boy—all my hopes are centered in him, and I could not endure the thought that his heart and his sympathy for any one’s misfortune should have run away with his judgment. But I should not have been so hasty—I should have allowed him to bring you to us, that we might have been convinced of the worthiness of his choice. And I cannot tell you, dear, how proud and happy, how relieved I am to find his selection a most fitting one after all.”
Ah! then he was only satisfied with her now because he had discovered that she was heiress to Sir Edgar Douglas, and a descendant of the one whom he had loved in his youth; not because of her own worthiness to be his wife, and her ability to make him happy. It was the pride of blood after all. Thus she interpreted his words.
She released her hand, and lifting her head proudly, said, with hauteur:
“Pardon me, my lord, if I cannot agree with you in thinking that I shall make Adrian any better wife for having noble blood in my veins. I have been brought upunder the shadow of democratic institutions, and I believe that true worth should in every instance be considered before birth or position. My being a Douglas does not change in the least degree my character.”
She looked like a little queen as she proudly faced him, and fearlessly advanced her independent principles.
But the spirit was on him to try her still further, and he asked:
“But, my dear, if you should live to see a son grow to man’s estate, would you be willing for him to seek out a wife among the mechanics or peasantry?”
It was a hard question, and Brownie thought a moment before replying. Then she said:
“Sir, I believe that the worldly condition of a person makes no difference with the heart or intellect, only so far as it contributes advantages of education and culture. If my son should choose a wife whose heart was pure and true, whose mind had been cultivated, and whose nature was refined, so that she was his equal morally and intellectually, for otherwise they could never be congenial, I should never dare take the responsibility of destroying the happiness of a lifetime, were she titled lady or peasant born.”
“What a noble-hearted little woman you are!” his lordship exclaimed, in admiration, and inspired with something of her own enthusiasm.
Then he added, with a little smile of amusement, while there was an expression of earnest entreaty in his eyes:
“My dear, I think if I had another grandson I should never dare judge his bride until I knew her personally. I like and admire you just as you are, independent of your being a Douglas. Now shall we shake hands and bury the hatchet?”
She looked up, and their eyes met.
She regarded him earnestly for a minute.
With a witching smile and gesture, she laid both her hands in his outstretched palm, and said, archly:
“I had made up my mind to forgive you for Adrian’s sake, but I begin to think I shall have to for your own, and,” she added, in a lower tone, the tears springing to her eyes, “because auntie loved you so well.”
“Did she?” he said, eagerly; “tell me about her.”
He led her to a seat, and Brownie, never weary of talking of her dear one who was gone, rehearsed all the sad story which Miss Mehetabel had told her on that last day of her life.
When she had told him about the note which Miss Capel had undertaken to deliver his lordship became greatly excited:
“Ah, the treacherous girl! I almost suspected it when it was too late, and but for her I should never have known the sorrow and bitterness I have suffered all these weary years. Oh, Meta, Meta,” he cried, with almost a sob, “it was too hard when I loved you so! It has been a terrible wound, and one that has never healed. I cannot even hear her name spoken without its ringing forth from memory’s chords notes of anguish. I would not wrong the living,” he hastened to say, “for I honor my wife as a pure and noble woman, and she has ever been a kind and gentle helpmeet, but that love was the love of a lifetime, which nothing could kill. And she died, you say,” he continued, wiping the tears which he could not stay, “only last September, true to the last. Oh, fool and blind that I was, not to have crushed my pride and forced my way into her presence! But,” and he started fiercely to his feet and began pacing the room, “I will have it out even at this late day with that traitoress, Lady Randal. I will know what was in that note yet, and she shall know that her perfidy is discovered.”
“My lord, I have the note,” interrupted Brownie, and she told him how she had gained possession of it, thinking it no wrong to take it under the circumstances.
“It was perfectly justifiable, and will you give it to me?” he begged.
“Yes, I will get it for you before you go.”
Then he asked her about the mystery of the jewels, and how Isabel Coolidge happened to have them, and she had to repeat all the circumstances regarding them.
“You shall have them again,” he cried. “I can prove that every one belongs to you. That girl shall give them up, and I only hope that Sir Charles will have his eyes opened before it is too late.”
Brownie smiled as she thought how many had expressed that wish, and just at that moment Adrian appeared with Lady Dunforth.
“Have you two made it up?” the former asked, laughing, as he saw how confidential they had become.
“Yes; and I’ve promised not to interfere with my next grandson’s matrimonial inclinations in any way,” Lord Dunforth replied, with a sly glance at Brownie, as he shook the young man’s hand.
He laughed, then asked:
“Did she tell you how they made her a prisoner down at West Malling, and of her discoveries there?”
“No.”
So Adrian related that circumstance himself, and explained how, when he found her cold and desolate the next morning, with not a friend to whom to flee, and feeling it impossible to return to Lady Ruxley, he had proposed on the spot to take her away in the only way in which he could do so honorably—by making her his wife, and so they had come immediately to London and were married.
“Right, my boy, and I honor you for it. May Heaven forgive me for seeking to destroy your happiness in the way I did,” returned his lordship, heartily, while his horror and indignation against Lady Randal for her conduct regarding her younger son was boundless.
Harmony being fully restored, Lord and Lady Dunforth spent the day and dined with the young couple, and parted from them in the evening upon the best of terms, insisting that they must sojourn at least a part of every year at Castle Dunforth.
“You know that it is your home, Adrian—yours and—may I call you Meta?” his lordship asked, suddenly turning to Brownie, and speaking the name with infinite tenderness.
“Yes, do; I should like it,” she replied, with a smile.
“Then, my children, you will come home soon,” he added.
“Yes, sir, we will,” and Adrian shook his hand heartily.