CHAPTER LII.
Norman de Vere lost no time writing his mother the joyful news about Thea. He knew that it would make her very happy.
He was not disappointed, for soon there came a letter from her breathing all her pleasure at the good news, and expressing her hope that they would come home soon, so that she could give her darling Thea a mother’s care.
“I should like to go,” Thea said, thinking longingly of beautiful Verelands. Since she had left London and Lady Edith she had grown homesick.
“Are you tired of Italy?” Norman asked, in some surprise.
“No, I am not tired; only when one is sick one misseshome,” she said. “And your dear mother, she must be lonely without us.”
“That is true,” he said, grateful for her thought of his mother. “Well, when you get stronger, darling, we will go home.”
So in six months after their marriage they turned their faces homeward. They stayed two days more in London, for the purpose of bidding Lord Stuart and his sister farewell, and Thea made them promise to visit her the next year. Lady Edith wept at parting, the girl had intwined herself so fondly around her heart.
“But we shall meet again, although I have to cross the seas to find you, my dearest,” she cried, tenderly; and Thea answered, earnestly:
“But for that hope I could not bear to be parted from you.”
She meant every word, for her heart clung with strange tenderness to the gentle, lovely woman, and it was with a bitter pang that she drew herself at last from the tender clasping arms and prepared to go with her husband.
Lord Stuart, too, parted from her with genuine regret.
“It almost seems as if you belonged to us by ties of blood, you have grown so dear,” he said; and he begged Norman to let her accept a parting gift from him—a diamond necklace of great value that had once belonged to his mother.
Norman was touched by the kindness and affection of these new friends, but he did not wonder at it. Thea was so beautiful and winning it would have seemed more strange if they had not loved her, he thought.
But at last they had parted, and the homeward journey was accomplished. Mrs. de Vere had come to New York to meet their steamer. She was too impatient to remain at home.
She showered Thea with caresses and praises.
“You are more lovely than ever,” she said, “and you have made me so happy I have nothing left to wish for in the world.”
They remained in New York several days, and the old lady, in spite of her happiness, did not forget her dead daughter-in-law. She ordered a beautiful bouquet, and drove alone to Greenwood to lay it on Camille’s grave.
“I would have gone with you if I had known,” Thea said, when she told her where she had been.
“I would have asked you, dear, only I knew Norman would not like it.”
“Not like it? But will he not go there himself?” Thea asked, a slight flush rising to her fair brow.
“No; I do not believe that he will. He was most unreasonably harsh toward poor Camille. They were separated through his jealousy, you know, dear, and no harm was ever really proved against her, but he never forgave her—does not even forgive her in her grave, I fear. But there, I ought not to be talking with you, child, about Norman’s first wife. He would not like it, I am sure, so do not tell him I went to Camille’s grave. Poor soul! I could not slight her memory.”
“You were fond of her?” Thea asked, timidly.
“Yes; but not so much as I am of you, Sweetheart. She was a little strange at times, and so fond of Norman that I fancy she was jealous even of his love for his mother. But naturally I forgave her that. I think if Heaven had blessed her as it has you, dear, that no trouble would have come between them. But it chafed her that no child came, and she threw herself into the whirl of society. She was too fond of admiration. My dear, never forget that your husband is a passionately jealous man. Never trifle with his heart.”
“I will not,” Thea promised; and after the old lady went out she sat a long time thinking compassionately of the woman who had been Norman’s wife long years ago, and who now lay dead, so bitterly hated still that he would not visit her grave.
Norman had gone to see his publisher about a book he was just bringing out, so Thea had several hours of solitude in which to brood over what her mother-in-law had most unwisely told her. She could not help feeling sad over it.
“I can not bear to think that my darling husband was hard and unjust to that dead woman. He seems to me so good and noble and tender that I can not realize him otherwise. But it must have been that jealousy drove him mad,” she sighed; and into her young heart came the most intense pity for Camille, whom he had put away so cruelly out of his heart and life.
“And she lived under that heavy cross for years. How did she bear it? If it had been me, I should have died, I think, in the very hour of our parting,” sighed Thea, who fancied that any great grief had power to kill.
She did not tell her husband that his mother had carried flowers to his wife’s grave, but she never forgot it. It kept Camille’s memory alive in her thoughts; it invested it with a certain tender and sacred air. She grew to look at the subjectas her mother-in-law had represented it to her, deeming Camille little less than a martyr.
They went home the next day, and Thea was so weary from her long journey that she was ill for several days. The old doctor shook his wise head, and declared that she must be kept very quiet this fall—she would not be able to bear any great bustle or excitement.
So several months passed away quietly but happily at Verelands. Norman was utterly devoted to his young wife—utterly happy in her love, that was so true and steadfast, not stormy and capricious as Camille’s had been. He felt that he had never known happiness before in its truest sense.
One of the things that consoled Thea most when she returned home was to hear that Cameron Bentley had engaged himself to Miss Faris, the New York beauty. She did not know that it had been done through pique, not love, to make the world think he had got over the past.
When Nellie, who had been faithful to Thea through everything, came to see her, she told her that Cameron was spending the winter in New York to be near his lady-love.
“He is quite ashamed now of his attempt at suicide, and will stay away from Jacksonville until people begin to forget it,” his sister said, frankly.
But when Diana came she was more reserved, and did not mention her brother. She held a secret resentment against Thea, not only because, as she phrased it, she had “made a fool of Cam,” but because she had married Norman de Vere, the man on whom she had set her heart.
But beautiful Sweetheart, unconscious of the ill-will of any one on earth, was the happiest wife in the world—and very soon the happiest mother, for when the church-bells rang on Christmas morning Norman held in his arms his Christmas gift—a beautiful baby—his blue-eyed son.