CHAPTER L.
It was in Italy, two months later, that a letter came to the happy bride, reminding her of her promise to go to Lord Stuart’s London house in May.
“My sister has fallen in love with my description of you, Mrs. de Vere, and as she already knows your gifted husband through his clever books, she is most anxious to meet you both, and prides herself on the opportunity of presenting in society this year an author and a beauty. You will not have the heart to disappoint her, I know, so promise us that you will come by the middle of May,” he wrote; and Thea looked questioningly at her husband.
“Shall we go?”
“I thought, my darling, that you had already promised Lord Stuart?”
“So I did—but”—with a swift, passionate glance under the long fringe of her thick lashes—“we have been so happy alone together. Will it be so when we go to London? Will society be as pleasant as this?”
She glanced about her at their pretty private parlor, where they had spent so many happy evenings together, “the world forgetting, by the world forgot,” then she flung her white arms about his neck and gave him an impulsive kiss.
Norman caught her to his breast in a passionate embrace.
“Oh, my little love, how happy you make me!” he whispered in the deep tones of strong emotion; and for a little while Lord Stuart’s letter was quite forgotten in the love-making that ensued.
When the subject came up again, they decided to accept the invitation.
“I dare say you will enjoy it very much. Beautiful young women always do,” Norman said, smiling. “You will have a chance to air your new Paris dresses that have never been worn yet; and,chère petite, you will need a maid.”
“Oh, dear, no; that will be quite unnecessary,” she protested; but her husband gently but firmly overruled the objections she had always raised to a maid.
“We will set about securing one at once,” he said; and Thea gave way gracefully. Of course he knew best.
A clever, elderly woman was secured, English instead of French, for Norman had always detested French maids since the days of Finette Du Val. With something like a sigh forthe past happy days, Thea turned her face to the future, and in a few more days found herself clinging bashfully to her husband’s arm and receiving the cordial greetings of Lord Stuart and his widowed sister in their beautiful home.
She had looked forward with eager interest to the meeting with Lord Stuart’s sister, who had been romantic enough to mourn her dead husband for eighteen years. To the young bride who loved her husband with passionate devotion such constancy appeared most charming. She was quite sure that she should do the same if she were to lose her dear Norman, if indeed she did not die outright of grief.
Poor Thea, poor, happy, loving child! it seemed to her so easy to die if bereft of that which made life worth living. She did not realize the bitter contrasts of life:
“We pray for death,But death comes not at will.”
“We pray for death,But death comes not at will.”
“We pray for death,But death comes not at will.”
“We pray for death,
But death comes not at will.”
She had been so much interested in Lord Stuart’s description of his sister that it did not seem strange to her that she thrilled and trembled when she stood at last in Lady Edith’s presence, and felt the touch of her soft, white hand, and heard her low, sweet voice speaking to her in the kindest accents, as if she quite understood the pretty girlish shyness of her guest.
Thea gained courage from those gentle tones and looked up at Lady Edith.
She saw a woman of medium height and size, exquisitely formed, and with such a lovely, pensive face that it seemed to beguile the young girl’s heart from her breast. Dark-blue eyes, shining chestnut braids, and delicate, high-bred features combined to make the young widow rarely lovely still, though past the prime of youth. Her dress was some soft shining arrangement of black and white, showing that she still wore mourning in a slight degree for her loved and lost. This lovely, winning woman welcomed Thea with a sweet cordiality that made them friends at once.
When the husband and wife had gone to their rooms to dress for dinner, Lady Edith turned to her brother with tears in her lovely eyes.
“How beautiful she is!” she cried. “I am in love with her already. Do you know, brother, that she reminds me strongly of my poor dead Arthur?”
“Is it that?” he exclaimed. “Why, now I know what it is that drew me to Thea de Vere from the first. She has a look of poor Arthur.”
“The same bright smile, and an indefinable something about her whole face and manner,” sighed Lady Edith. She remained quite silent a few moments, then murmured, in a musing tone: “My little darling, if she had lived, would have looked like this young girl—the same blue eyes and dazzling golden curls.”
Meanwhile, Norman de Vere was saying to his fair young bride:
“It will not be necessary, my darling, to confide to these English people the story of your past—that is, of the strange way in which you came into my guardianship.”
“Oh, Norman, are you ashamed of the mystery that surrounds my birth?” she cried, startled.
“Not in the least, my darling wife; but English people of rank lay so much stress upon birth and position, and it would seem strange to them that I could never trace your family. I have told our host that you were my ward from early childhood, and that is enough for any one to know,” said Norman, who had a pride equal to any one’s, only he did not realize it.
Thea had just come in to him from the hands of her maid. She looked lovely in a dinner-dress of blue and white, with ornaments of pearl.
“Sweetheart, how lovely you are, and how young and childish you appear by my side! I hope people will not begin to call you an old man’s darling,” Norman said, drawing her within the circle of his arm before the tall mirror and gazing critically upon the reflection therein—the handsome man in manhood’s early prime, and the lovely golden-haired girl whose head just reached his broad shoulder.
“You shall not call yourself old,” she cried, caressing him in her pretty, tender fashion. “How do you like my Worth dress?” she continued, gayly.
“It is adorable!” he replied; but he was looking at her face, not the dainty creation of blue and white.
“Adorable is not exactly the term to apply to a dress, but I will excuse you, as I know it is becoming, and perhaps that makes me adorable.” Thea laughed saucily; then she pushed her white hand through his arm and drew him to the door.
“Let us go down to the drawing-room,” she said. “I am anxious to meet that sweet lady again. I have fallen in love with her at sight.”
“She is very charming, certainly,” he agreed. Then he laughed. “But I suppose I must not fall in love with her, too, or my little wife will be jealous.”
“Jealous of sweet Lady Edith—no, never!” the girl cried, impulsively, her young heart thrilling with affection for the sweet, pensive-faced woman who but a few hours before had been a stranger to her save in name. But to Thea it almost seemed as if she had known Lady Edith years and years.