CHAPTER XXXVII.CONCLUSION.
He could not approach her. Though he longed to see her, to hear her voice, to touch her hand, ah! and to hold her in his arms as he had done for that one short moment in the woods, he felt that for the present it would be well for him to keep away from her.
She was bearing up wonderfully. He would waylay Bessie perhaps once a day, and get her to talk to him of her; and never was Bessie reluctant to talk of her beloved mistress, and Bessie told him how remarkably Olivia had escaped the dreaded return of her illness.
“If anything had happened, my lord,” Bessie would say, and then Lord Clydesfold would silence her. He would not permit any one to speak of the past.
While the world was still talking and marveling over the romantic “Hawkwood Murder,” and wondering why, now that he was free from the woman who had held him in thrall and free from the shadow of death, Lord Clydesfold did not return to the society which his rank and wealth would have so well adorned, the blow which he had been expecting fell upon the squire.
A distant cousin of Bartley Bradstone’s rose up from the mists of obscurity and claimed what remained of his property; and, on examining his affairs, the mortgages on the Grange estate and the squire’s bonds were discovered.
Then was the cousin jubilant; and, losing no time, swooped down like a bird of prey.
The squire was prepared. It is a question whether, in the joy of having his darling restored to him, he felt any very great sorrow.
“We must go, dear,” he said to Olivia, from whom he now concealed nothing, and would never again conceal anything. “You will be brave, dear? It is a cruel business for you; but——”
Olivia put her arms round his neck, and drew his troubled, careworn face to hers.
“Dear, if you knew how wickedly glad I feel!” she said. “Let them take everything so that they leave you and me—and auntie—in peace. Shall we take a cottage in Wales, or go abroad; one can live so cheaply abroad, can’t one?”
“I—I don’t quite know yet,” said the squire, doubtfully. “I must ask Clydesfold.”
Olivia’s head dropped, and a faint color flew into her cheeks.
“Do you ask Lord Clydesfold’s advice as to how many pieces of toast you should eat for breakfast, dear?” she whispered, with a little pout.
The old man rubbed his chin, and laughed absently.
“Well, I think I do, almost. I’ll just go down to The Dell; I wish he’d come up here. But—but, I suppose——” and he looked at her.
“Yes, you suppose rightly,” she said, hiding her face on his shoulder again. “Do you want me to die of shame, as I should do the moment I saw him?”
“No, I don’t want you to die of anything,” he said, tenderly stroking her hand.
“Why doesn’t he go back to London, to his old friends, the lords and ladies, who used to be so fond of him?”
“I don’t know. I told him that it was his duty to do so; and he remarked that he was rather tired of doing his duty.”
A smile crept over Olivia’s face, and her eyes grew dreamy.
“That is like one of his old speeches,” she murmured. “And he looks better, and more as he used to do.”
“Why, when did you see him?” asked the squire, with some surprise.
Olivia flushed crimson, and she covered her face with her hands as she whispered, “I—I saw him, with the fieldglass, from one of the windows!”
The squire could not suppress a smile, as he put her from him.
“And I always thought you were proud,” he said.
“I’m—I’m the meanest creature in existence,” she said, piteously, as she ran out of the room.
The squire walked down to The Dell, gravely thoughtful, but serene and resigned.
He found Clydesfold walking to and fro in the little front garden, smoking his pipe.
“It has come, Clydesfold,” he said, putting the letter in his hand.
Clydesfold read it, then nodded.
“What will you do?” he asked. “What does she say?”
There was never any occasion for him to say Olivia; there was only one “she” in the world for him.
“She bears it wonderfully; one would almost think she welcomes it. She suggests a cottage in Wales or an exile on the Continent. I told her I should come to you.”
Clydesfold nodded again.
“Better take her on the Continent,” he said. “The change will work a miracle in her. This trouble of yours will lead her to forget her own, and all that has passed. Yes, take her to Paris,” he concluded.
“Very well,” assented the squire, as if he was a father taking a wise son’s advice. “And what are you going to do? You will not live in this place any longer, Clydesfold?”
“No, not much longer. I shall leave it when you are gone.”
“That is right,” said the squire. “I am glad; but for your sake, and not for my own,” and he sighed. “It will be hard to think of the old place having gone forever, and still harder to think of your having left it too. A double loss, Clydesfold. Where will you live? You have two or three places in England, have you not?”
“Yes; but I am going to live at Hawkwood Grange,” he said, quietly.
The squire started and stared at him.
“At—at—the Grange?” he faltered.
Clydesfold nodded, and drew the old man’s arm within his. “Yes; I have already written instructions to my solicitor to secure the place. And”—he added, slowly and distinctly, for the squire had begun to wince and draw his arm away as if he feared Clydesfold was going to offer to give it back to him—“and I am not going to part with it. I always liked it. I have learned to love and covet it. You don’t mind my buying it, do you, sir? I shall treat it reverently, be sure.”
“No, no, no!” said the squire, the tears starting to his eyes. “I would rather you had the old place than any man in the world. If you had been my son——” He stopped. “We shan’t keep you waiting long, Clydesfold,” he said.
“Don’t, please,” said Lord Clydesfold, quite calmly. “The sooner you go the better I shall be pleased, for, you see, I want to do it up, and—and take her away at once, sir!” he broke off, rather inconsequently. “Come inside and let us talk over your plans. I wish”—the color rose to his face—“I wish I were going with you.”
The squire returned to the Grange in about an hour.
“My dear, could you guess who has bought the old place?” he said.
“Yes; Lord Clydesfold,” she replied, with her eyes flashing. “And—and—oh, papa, papa,” and she burst into tears, “you would not take it from him?”
The squire soothed her.
“My dear, he hasn’t offered it to me,” he retorted, rather dryly. “He intends living here himself.”
She stared and wiped her eyes.
“And when can we go?” she demanded, restlessly.
“Very soon,” he said. “But not too soon for the new owner, it seems.”
“Oh!”
“Yes, he wants us gone at once. Wants to do it up.”
“Oh!”
“Yes; and we’ll go to Paris, I think, dear.”
“So he has sent us to Paris, has he?” she said. “One would think we were his bond slaves.”
“We are—in gratitude,” he said, gently.
She melted in a moment.
“I’ll go and tell Bessie,” she said, meekly.
In two days they started. All the preparations, those pertaining to business, had been made by Lord Clydesfold. He also saw to every little detail of their journey; engaged a special Pullman, took their Channel tickets, ordered rooms at one of the inexpensive hotels in Paris—but did not go near her.
The squire had bid him a good-by which was as affectionate as that of a father to his best-beloved son, and, as Clydesfold held the old man’s hands, the squire said:
“I’m to say good-by to Olivia for you?”
“No,” he said; “she will take my heart, my every thought with her; she has no need of a good-by. I have no message for her. I want her to forget; and the sight of me, a word from me, would cause her to remember.”
“I understand. God bless you, my boy!” murmured the old man.
In a few days it was publicly known that the squire had been “sold up,” and that Lord Clydesfold had bought house and lands, horses and cattle, every stick and stone.
Two days afterward, twenty or thirty men, carrying pickaxes and spades, were seen to tramp up the avenue, and, to the amazement of all, they were seen to set to work cutting a new road. But everybody understood Lord Clydesfold’s intentions when it was observed that the new road diverged as far as possible from the old one, and his object was made still clearer when an army of men fell to work with Portland cement, and altered The Maples from red to white. And when they had finished, the villagers were startled by seeing, in neatly carved letters, “Hospital for Convalescent Children” along its front.
The Grange, too, was redecorated, and, though not altered in character, still very much brightened and lightened.
All this took time, and Lord Clydesfold never left the place for a day, but superintended the whole with as much—probably more—energy than if he had been a clerk of the works.
He and Bertie were constantly together, and Clydesfold almost lived at the Carfields’.
At last he had accomplished all he had planned, and one day he remarked quite casually at breakfast:
“I think of running over to Paris to-morrow.”
Bertie and Lord Carfield exchanged glances.
“Very well,” said the latter. “Early train?”
“Thanks, yes; pass the marmalade, Bertie.”
That was all; but as he got into the dogcart on the morrow, Bertie held his hand and pressed it.
“Good luck, dear old boy,” he whispered; and Lord Clydesfold returned the pressure without a word.
He had received news of her almost daily, sometimes from the squire, sometimes from Bessie, and not seldom from the Paris society papers.
For, though they had striven to live in as much seclusion as is possible in the gay city, friends had hunted them up and had insisted upon Olivia going out a little. She withstood all entreaties for some time, but yielded at last; and the Parisians, who are always ready to acknowledge and welcome beauty and grace—even English, which are supposed to be non-existent!—made what Aunt Amelia called “a fuss” over her.
Before ten months had passed Olivia had received as many offers. One from a well-known nobleman, of so high a rank that he must be nameless in these pages, threw good Aunt Amelia into a flutter of excitement, which was turned into the agony of despair by Olivia’s refusal.
“My dear,” she exclaimed, with tearful indignation, “do you want to marry an emperor? Is that what you are waiting for?”
“I don’t want to marry any one,” returned Olivia; “and I am not waiting for any one.”
“Well, I’m glad of it!” exclaimed Aunt Amelia, driven snappish by her disappointment. “Because if you are waiting for—for——”
“Well?” demanded Olivia, her eyes beginning to flash and her little foot to beat the carpet; by which sign the intelligent reader will understand how perfectly restored she was.
“Well, my dear, don’t look as if you meant to eat me. All I meant to say was that he doesn’t seem as if he were coming, or as if—if he meant to come.”
“I—I don’t know what you mean!” exclaimed Olivia.
Then she burst into tears, which seemed to indicate that after all she had some inkling whom Aunt Amelia intended by “he.”
She dried her tears very quickly, and went to dress for a ball; quite “a quiet affair,” with only about two hundred guests.
She had never looked more lovely than she looked that night, and had never shone more brilliantly. The romantic story, the more than rumored proposal of the prince, attractedall attention to her; and everybody of note—and there were some famous personages there—begged for an introduction to the beautiful, young English girl.
Suddenly she grew tired, and sent her rejected suitor—who could not tear himself away from her, notwithstanding his rejection—for her father.
“Take me home, papa,” she said in a low voice.
“Yes, yes; certainly, my dear,” he said; and he took her upon his arm down the great staircase.
All the way home in the carriage she lay back silent and with her eyes closed.
“Are you tired, dear?” he asked. “You are not ill?” and he looked anxious.
“Not ill, dear, only tired,” she said, smiling at him lovingly. “I—I think I should like to leave Paris for a time.”
“We’ll go to-morrow,” he assented at once. “Er—that is, I’ll write and ask——”
He stopped.
“Lord Clydesfold!” she finished; and there was something like bitterness in her voice. “Can we not go without troubling him, dear? He——” She paused for a second. “Why should he care where or when we go?”
“He is all that is good and true and generous!” he said, gently.
“Yes, I know,” she assented, wearily, or with an affectation of weariness. “I know there is no one in the world to compare with him; but I think we have troubled him enough.”
He looked at her with a puzzled stare; fathers seldom understand their daughters’ heart-moods.
They remained silent until they reached the hotel, then he said:
“Go in and rest in the drawing-room before you go upstairs, and I will bring you a glass of wine.”
She opened the door listlessly, and stopped with a start.
For some one had risen from a seat, and was advancing toward her with outstretched hand, and her name upon his lips.
“Olivia!”
The cloak dropped from her shoulder, and revealed her graceful, girlish form, in its exquisite dress, against which her white skin shone like ivory faintly flushed with rose, and her lovely face went pale and then flushed, and her eyes dilated.
He came forward in his sable-lined traveling-ulster, his handsome face no longer haggard and careworn, as she hadseen it last, but eloquent of youth and strength, and—ah, of love and hope!
“Olivia!”
She could not move for a moment; then, panting, she held out her hand.
“You! When—when did you come?”
“To-night. I have been waiting.”
“Papa—I will fetch him,” she breathed.
His hand gripped hers, his eyes feasted on her face.
“No, I can wait a while.”
She felt that she must go on speaking or—what? Fall into his arms? Throw herself at his feet?
“I hope—I hope you had a pleasant journey?”
“Very! It snowed all the time. I have been ten months on the road.”
Her eyes drooped.
“Have—have you come to stay?” she faltered.
“No,” he said; “I am going on to the South.”
Her heart suddenly seemed to grow cold, and heavy as lead.
“Why—why did you come?”
“I came for you!” he answered.
And as he spoke he drew her toward him, and took her in his strong arms, and crushed her dainty lace and shimmering satin against his breast, so close that he could feel the throbbing of her heart as it beat wildly and passionately against his own, could feel her hair against his face.
“Oh—oh, let me go!” she panted; but—was it fancy?—she seemed to nestle closer, even as she spoke. “Let me go!”
“Ah, no, never again!” he answered in the low accents of passion—passion that had been suppressed for ten months and longer. “Never again unless you tell me that you do not love me; then I will go forever! What do you say, Olivia? Ah, I won’t shame your sweet trustfulness by asking. Kiss me, my darling! Give me the kiss that I have been thirsting for so long—so long.”
She raised her head, and looked at him, and her soul seemed to melt and fly on the wings of a dove to his. Then, with the little shudder of joy’s excess, she put up her hands, slid them, warm and soft, round his neck, and, drawing his face down, let her lips cling to his.
“Oh, my love, my love! oh, my darling!” she breathed. “If you knew! If you knew! But you will never know, you never can! Must I tell you?”
He answered her with a passionate kiss. Her face burned, and she hid against his breast, drawing the sable lining of his coat round her to hide her as she made her confession:
“I thought—I thought to-night that you were never coming, and that I must see you or—die!”
Nearly a year passed before Lord Clydesfold brought his bride back to the old home, which he had made a House Beautiful for her; and not only the whole population of Hawkwood and Wainford, but, as it seemed, almost the whole of the county, congregated to give them welcome.
All that was done that day in the way of triumphal arches, feasting, and speech-making, is it not written in the columns of theWainford Gazette? There is no need to reprint it here. But mention must be made of one feature of the festivities.
Massed near the new gates that opened to the new drive were two or three hundred little children, neatly clad, and wearing happy faces, as rosy as the flowers they held in their hands ready to throw in the path of the lovely young countess.
They were the children of the Convalescent Home, which had effaced The Maples, and in their midst stood a pale, but serene, and, indeed, happy-faced matron. She was known at the Home and to the world as Sister Elizabeth, and had grown so used to hear herself so called in accents of childish love that she would scarcely have responded if some one had chanced to remember her and called her—Liz Lee.
Seth had disappeared in the confusion and excitement of Lord Clydesfold’s release on the day of the trial, and, with true gypsy cunning, had succeeded in concealing his whereabouts from all excepting the man who, with generous hand, sent him periodically enough to live on.
Of Ezekiel Mowle there are no tidings; but we have a shrewd suspicion that he is doing well somewhere, and that he will continue to do so, until, having reached the height of the proverbially flourishing bay-tree, he will in a moment of imprudence lose his caution, grow reckless, and be cut down.
Bessie; what of true-hearted, devoted Bessie? You will find her at the Grange, and never far from her beloved mistress’ side. You must ask for her still as Miss Alford, for Bessie is still unmarried. She has had offers, many and excellent, but she has refused them, and will still refuse them. She gives no reason, but simply says, “I thank you, no!” and it has grown into a tradition that at some time—they say just about the period in which she had the pony accident—she lost her heart, and has never been able to find who stole it.
At any rate, be that as it may, she is as happy as—asOlivia, Countess of Clydesfold; and it would be difficult to find a higher state of felicity.
As the squire says, as he looks at his “son and daughter,” from his old armchair by the great dining-room fire:
“How can a woman be anything but happy when she is married to a man who has proved that he is willing to lay down his life for her sake?”
THE END.