CHAPTER XXXII.
“Let me see George Hinton’s letter, Norman?” said Mrs. de Vere; and he passed it to her across the table, then sat musing with a far-off light in his grave, dark eyes.
He sat thinking of the past—of that day long years ago when going into the ladies’ car he had first seen the lovely child whose life he had afterward saved. He remembered, as if it had been yesterday, the moment when Sweetheart had first awakened and turned upon him and the others in the car the sweet light of her drowsy, azure eyes. What a little beauty she looked with her dazzling coloring, her rosebud mouth and dimples, her fluffy golden hair! If she had grown up like that, was it any wonder men went down like chaff before her smiles?
A light came into his eyes. Something had dawned upon him suddenly but convincingly.
“Why should I be surprised?” he thought. “The child was a coquette even then to the tips of her rosy fingers. The drummers all saw it, and smiled at it. She made a victim of me, even in innocent babyhood. Is it any wonder that she has fulfilled the promise of early years?”
He frowned, then sighed. It was not pleasant to think of that pretty child, scarce more than seventeen, amusing herself in this wicked fashion. Norman de Vere had old-fashioned ideas in many things. He called it wicked to trifle with the human heart.
Mrs. de Vere looked perplexed.
“Norman, what are you going to do?” she said. “Mr. Hinton seems to think we ought to take her back here.”
“There is not the least doubt about that. We will have to do so,” he replied, decisively.
“If she is so pretty and so wild she may prove troublesome,” Mrs. de Vere observed, anxiously.
“Doubtless,” her son replied, grimly; then he sighed. “But our duty remains the same. I wish she had been content to marry Frank Hinton, whom I believe to be a manly young fellow. I saw him once on a trip with his father, and it was some such idea that made me offer his father the means to educate the boy for a profession.”
“Norman, to think of your turning match-maker!” his mother exclaimed, in amused surprise.
He flushed, then laughed.
“It seems ridiculous, I know, mother,” he owned. “But the child’s future was on my mind, and it seemed natural that, growing up in the house with those young men, she might grow to fancy one of them.”
“As a brother, yes, but not as a husband. Girls are much more likely to fancy strangers as lovers. They are capricious,” Mrs. de Vere said; and she quoted Longfellow to her son:
“‘Thus it is our daughters leave us,Those we love and those who love us!Just when they have learned to help us,When we are old and lean upon them,Comes a youth with flaunting feathers;With his flute of reeds, a stranger,Wanders piping through the village,Beckons to the fairest maiden,And she follows where he leads her,Leaving all things for the stranger!’”
“‘Thus it is our daughters leave us,Those we love and those who love us!Just when they have learned to help us,When we are old and lean upon them,Comes a youth with flaunting feathers;With his flute of reeds, a stranger,Wanders piping through the village,Beckons to the fairest maiden,And she follows where he leads her,Leaving all things for the stranger!’”
“‘Thus it is our daughters leave us,Those we love and those who love us!Just when they have learned to help us,When we are old and lean upon them,Comes a youth with flaunting feathers;With his flute of reeds, a stranger,Wanders piping through the village,Beckons to the fairest maiden,And she follows where he leads her,Leaving all things for the stranger!’”
“‘Thus it is our daughters leave us,
Those we love and those who love us!
Just when they have learned to help us,
When we are old and lean upon them,
Comes a youth with flaunting feathers;
With his flute of reeds, a stranger,
Wanders piping through the village,
Beckons to the fairest maiden,
And she follows where he leads her,
Leaving all things for the stranger!’”
“How strange is human nature!” he mused, aloud; then, decisively, again: “There is no other way but to bring her to Verelands. Young, beautiful, willful, she needs a guiding and restraining hand. Yet, mother, it will be hard upon you to have our sweet home life broken up by this.”
“Do not think of me. I am ready to do my duty,” she said, hurriedly, and there was a minute’s silence.
Norman looked grave, even reluctant; yet finally he said:
“I will write to Mr. Hinton and ask him to bring Thea West to Verelands immediately. I will write Thea, too, and lay my commands upon her to accompany him, for I can fancy that she might rebel against his authority.”
The letters were promptly written and dispatched, and a beautiful suite of rooms was prepared for the coming guest.
“After all, Norman, she may prove a pleasure and a comfort to us,” Mrs. de Vere said.
She liked to look on the bright side.
“Let us hope so for your sake, dear little mother,” he answered, dryly. Then he looked at her with something likecompassion. “After all, life must be lonely for her, poor thing!” he mused. “She has no absorbing work like mine to fill up the measure of her time. I believe that at the bottom of her heart she is glad that Thea West is coming, only she will not confess it for fear of offending me.”
Mrs. de Vere was certainly in a flutter of pleasant anticipation. She spared no pains to have Thea’s rooms bright and attractive. She had dazzling visions of a lovely girl fluttering about the house and grounds; of the long-closed piano being opened; of music trilling through the long-silent rooms. She had almost given up society, because Norman cared so little for it, but now she would accept more invitations for the sake of the bright young girl, who would love music and dancing and everything that was gay and happy, and whose lovers would quite besiege Verelands.
“It will be almost like having a daughter of my own—and I always wanted a daughter so much,” she sighed.
But to her dismay the postman brought one morning a little letter in a pretty, school-girlish hand to Norman de Vere—a letter breathing defiance and independence.
“I refuse to recognize your alleged authority over me, Mr. Norman de Vere. I have been told that you found me in a wreck, and that the only interest you have in me is that of charity for a friendless child. I thank you and your mother for the charity bestowed on me, and, God helping me, I will repay in time the obligations I owe you—at least, as far as they can be repaid in money. I am a woman now, and no longer need eat the bitter bread of charity. I left my home at Mr. Hinton’s because my presence was unwelcome there, and am earning my bread and butter with my own hands. In the full intention of continuing to do so, and firmly declining the home at Verelands, which it must be as irksome for you to offer as it would be for me to accept, I remain,“Gratefully yours,“Thea West.”
“I refuse to recognize your alleged authority over me, Mr. Norman de Vere. I have been told that you found me in a wreck, and that the only interest you have in me is that of charity for a friendless child. I thank you and your mother for the charity bestowed on me, and, God helping me, I will repay in time the obligations I owe you—at least, as far as they can be repaid in money. I am a woman now, and no longer need eat the bitter bread of charity. I left my home at Mr. Hinton’s because my presence was unwelcome there, and am earning my bread and butter with my own hands. In the full intention of continuing to do so, and firmly declining the home at Verelands, which it must be as irksome for you to offer as it would be for me to accept, I remain,
“Gratefully yours,“Thea West.”
Mrs. de Vere sat gazing at the letter like a statue. She could not realize it, this proud, defiant spirit of the girl she remembered so kindly. A vision of the child stole over her—the sunny curls, the frank blue eyes, the loving heart. How could this be Little Sweetheart?
“Well, mother?” Norman said at last, impatient of her blank silence.
“I do not know what to say! I can not realize that Little Sweetheart could defy us like this,” she answered.
“She has not been well trained, I fear,” he said. “I have a letter, too, from George Hinton. She has refused to come with him. She is determined to earn her own living, he says, but it may be that her old associates have wounded her pride by unkind allusions to her dependent condition, and fairly driven her into asserting her independence,” thoughtfully.
She caught eagerly at the idea.
“It may be true. Perhaps she has been misjudged. If she is so pretty, men may have fallen in love with her without much effort on her part.”
He smiled, and said:
“Dear little mother, always looking on the bright side of human nature!”
“Is it not best?” she asked, pleadingly; and Norman smiled again as he answered:
“Yes.”
“But what are you going to do, Norman? Must we give it up like this—after all my trouble, too? Those pretty rooms!” she sighed.
“Mother, I believe you are actually disappointed.”
“I am,” she said; and the great tears started into her eyes.
The handsome old face was drawn into lines of disappointment.
He stooped down and kissed her with something of the old boyish love so long repressed under the bitter consciousness that she blamed him for Camille’s sorrow.
“Dear mother, you must not be disappointed,” he said, tenderly. “You have set your heart on this girl, I see. Then why not undertake a mission to Virginia? I flatter myself that no one could resist my mother.”
“Do you mean it, Norman? Would you like for me to go?” she cried, in real excitement; and he saw how much her heart was set on having the girl at Verelands.
“Yes, I mean it, mother. I would go myself, but I am not sure I would succeed. With you it would be different. She would fall in love with you.”
“And why not with you?” she said, brightly. Then the color flew to her cheek. “Oh, Norman, I didn’t meanthatway!” she said, vaguely. “But she couldn’t help liking you on sight—as a dear older brother, of course.”
“‘Of course,’” he echoed, smiling at her confusion. “Let me see, mother—how old am I? Thirty-five? I feel fifty; and Thea West is about seventeen—almost young enough for my daughter.” He flushed as a certain bitter memory rose in his mind, but added, lightly: “I hope theinveterate little coquette will have more respect for my gray hairs than to try her arts on me.”
“There is not a gray hair in your head!” Mrs. de Vere cried, indignantly, as she ran her fingers through the clustering dark curls. “But I dare say the child is not half the coquette they pretend,” she added, for her kind heart went out more and more to the absent, friendless girl.
She paid no attention to Norman’s careless banter. He was too old and saddened and busy, and Thea West too young and giddy for the two to have anything in common with each other.
“So you will go?” he asked.
“Yes, to-morrow,” she replied, with eager interest.