Only a Girl's Love, Charles Garvice [a book to read .txt] 📗

Leycester. I don't think I have ever done that," said the countess, softly.

"No, you have been the best of mothers, my lady," he responded. "I never saw you in an ill temper in my life; perhaps that is why you look so young. You do look absurdly young, you know," he added, gazing at her with affectionate admiration.

When the countess seemed lost in thought, Leycester added:

"Devereux says that the majority of English wives and mothers look so girlish that he believes it must be the custom to marry them when they are children."

The countess smiled.

"Lord Devereux is master of fine phrases, Leycester. Yes, I was married very young."

Then she looked round the room: a strange reluctance to commence the task she had set herself took possession of her.

"You have made your rooms very pretty, Leycester."

He leant back, watching her with a smile.

"You haven't come to talk about my rooms, mother."

Then she straightened herself for her work.

"No, Leycester, I have come to talk about you."

"Rather an uninteresting subject. However, proceed."

"You may make it very hard for me," said the countess, with a little sigh.

He smiled.

"Then you have come to scold?"

"No, only to advise."

"That is generally the same thing under another name."

"I do not often do it," said the countess, in a low voice.

"Forgive me," he said, stooping forward and kissing her. "Now, mother, fire away. What is it? Not about that race money—you don't want me to give up the horses?"

The countess smiled almost scornfully.

"Why should I, Leycester; they cost a great deal of money, but if they amuse you, why——" and she shrugged her shoulders slightly.

"They do cost a great deal of money," he said, with a laugh, "but I don't know that they amuse me very much. I don't think anything amuses me very greatly."

Then the countess looked at him.

"When a man talks like that, Leycester, it generally means that it is time he was married!"

He half expected what was coming, but he looked grave; nevertheless he turned to her with a smile.

"Isn't that rather a desperate remedy, my lady?" he said. "I can give up my horses if they cease to amuse me and bore me too much; I can give up most of the other so-called amusements,[106] but marriage—supposing that should fail? It would be rather serious."

"Why should it fail?"

"It does sometimes," he retorted, gravely.

"Not when love enters into it," she answered, gently.

He was silent, his eyes bent on the ground, from which seemed to rise a slim, girlish figure, with Stella's face and eyes.

"There is no greater happiness than that which marriage affords when one is married to the person one loves. Do you think your father has been unhappy, Leycester?"

He turned to her with a smile.

"Every man—few men have his luck, my lady. Will you find me another Lady Ethel?"

She colored. This was a direct question, and she longed to answer it, but she dared not—not just yet.

"The world is full of fond, loving women," she said.

He nodded. He thought he knew one at least, and his eyes went to that mental vision of Stella again.

"Leycester, I want to see you married and settled," she murmured, after a pause. "It is time; it is fitting that you should be. I'll put the question of your own happiness aside for the moment; there are other things at stake."

"You would not like me to be the last Earl of Wyndward, mother? The title would die with me, would it not?"

"Yes," she said. "That must not be, Leycester."

He shook his head with a quiet smile. No, it should not be, he thought.

"I wonder," she continued, "that the thing has not come about before this, and without any word of mine. I don't think you are very hard-hearted, unimpressionable, Leycester. You and I have met some beautiful women, and some good and pure ones. I should not have been surprised if you had come to me with the confession of your conquest long ago. You would have come to me, would you not, Leycester?" she asked.

A faint flush stole over his face, and his eyes dropped slightly. He did not answer for a moment, and she went on as if he had assented.

"I should have been very glad to have heard of it. I should have welcomed your choice very heartily."

"Are you sure?" he said, almost mechanically.

"Quite," she answered, serenely. "Your wife will be a second daughter to me, I hope, Leycester. I know that I should love her if you do; are we ever at variance?"

"Never until to-night," he might have answered, but he remained silent.

What if he should turn to her with the frank openness with which he had gone to her in all his troubles and joys, and say:

"I have made my choice—welcome her. She is Stella Etheridge, the painter's daughter."

But he could not do this; he knew so well how she would have looked at him, saw already with full prophetic insight the calm, serene smile of haughty incredulity with which she would have received his demand. He was silent.

[107]

"You wonder why I speak to you about this to-night, Leycester?"

"A little," he said, with a smile that had very little mirth in it; he felt that he was doing what he had never done before—concealing his heart from her, meeting her with secrecy and evasion, and his proud, finely-tempered mind revolted at the necessity for it. "A little. I was just considering that I had not grown older by a score of years, and had not been doing anything particularly wild. Have they been telling you any dreadful stories about me, mother, and persuading you that matrimony is the only thing to save me from ruin?" and he laughed.

The countess colored.

"No one tells me any stories respecting you, Leycester, for the simple reason that I should not listen to them. I have nothing to do with—with your outer life, unless you yourself make me part and parcel of it. I am not afraid that you will do anything bad or dishonorable, Leycester."

"Thanks," he said, quietly. "Then what is it, mother? Why does this advice press so closely on your soul that you feel constrained to unburden yourself?"

"Because I feel that the time has come," she said; "because I have your happiness and welfare so closely at heart that I am obliged to watch over you, and secure them for you if I can."

"There never was a mother like you!" he said, gently. "But this is a serious step, my lady, and I am—shall I say slightly unprepared. You speak to me as if I were a sultan, and had but to throw my handkerchief at any fair maid whom I may fancy, to obtain her!"

The countess looked at him, and for a moment all her passionate pride in him shone in her eyes.

"Is there no one to whom you think you could throw that handkerchief, Leycester?" she asked, significantly.

His face flushed, and his eyes glowed. At that moment he felt the warm lips of his girl-love resting on his own.

"That is a blunt question, my lady," he said; "would it be fair to reply, fair to her, supposing that there be one?"

"In whom should you confide but in me?" said the countess, with a touch of hauteur in her voice, hauteur softened by love.

He looked down and turned the ruby ring on his finger. If he could but confide in her!

"In whom else but in me, from whom you have, I think, had few secrets? If your choice is made, you would come to me, Leycester? I think you would; I cannot imagine your acting otherwise. You see I have no fear"—and she smiled—"no fear that your choice would be anything but a good and a wise one. I know you so well, Leycester. You have been wild—you yourself said it, not I!"

"Yes," he said, quietly.

"But through it all you have not forgotten the race from whence you sprung, the name you bear. No, I do not fear that[108] most disastrous of all mistakes which a man in your position can make—a mesalliance."

He was silent, but his brows drew together.

"You speak strangely, my lady," he said, almost grimly.

"Yes," she assented, calmly, serenely, but with a grave intensity in her tone which lent significance to every word—"yes, I feel strongly. Every mother who has a son in your position feels as strongly, I doubt not. There are few mad things that you can do which will not admit of remedy and rectification; one of them, the worst of them, is a foolish marriage."

"Marriages are made in heaven," he murmured.

"No," she said, gently, "a great many are made in a very different place. But why need we talk of this? We might as well discuss whether it would be wise of you to commit manslaughter, or burglary, or suicide, or any other vulgar crime—and indeed a mesalliance would, in your case, strongly resemble one, suicide; it would be social suicide, at least; and from what I know of your nature, Leycester, I do not think that would suit you."

"I think not," he said, grimly. "But, mother, I am not contemplating a matrimonial union with one of the dairymaids, not at present."

She smiled.

"You might commit a mesalliance with one in higher position, Leycester. But why do we talk of this?"

"I think you commenced it," he said.

"Did I?" she said, sweetly. "I beg your pardon. I feel as if I had insulted you by the mere chance mention of such a thing; and I have tired you, too."

And she rose with queenly grace.

"No, no," he said, rising, "I am very grateful, mother; you will believe that?"

"Will you be more than that?" she asked, putting her hand on his shoulder, and sliding it round his neck. "Will you be obedient?"

And she smiled at him lovingly.

"Will I get out the handkerchief, do you mean?" he asked, looking at her with a curious gaze.

"Yes," she replied; "make me happy by throwing it."

"And suppose," he said, "that the favored damsel declines the honor?"

"We will risk that," she murmured, with a smile.

He laughed.

"One would think you had already chosen, mother," he said.

She looked at him, with the smile still shining in her eyes and on her lips.

"Suppose I have? There is no matchmaker like a mother."

He started.

"You have? You surprise me! May one ask on whom your choice has fallen, sultaness?"

"Think," she said, in a low voice.

[109]

"I am thinking very deeply," he answered, with hidden meaning.

"If I were left to choose for you, I should be very exacting, Leycester, don't you think?"

"I am afraid so," he said, with a smile. "Every goose thinks her bantling a swan, and would mate it with an eagle. Forgive me, mother!"

She inclined her head.

"I should require much. I should want beauty, wealth——"

"Of which we have too much already. Go on."

"Rank, and what is still better, a high position. The Wyndwards cannot troop with crows, Leycester."

"Beauty, wealth, rank, and a mysterious sort of position. A princess, perhaps, my lady?"

A proud light shone in her eyes.

"I should not feel abased in the presence of a princess, if you brought her to me," she said, with that serene hauteur which characterized her. "No, I am satisfied with less than that, Leycester."

"I am relieved," he said, smiling. "And this exalted personage—paragon I should say—who is she?"

"Look round—you need not strain your vision," she returned: "I can see her now. Oh, blind, blind! that you cannot see her also! She whom I see is more than all these; she is a woman with a loving heart in her bosom, that needs but a word to set it beating for—you!"

His face flushed.

"I can think of no one," he said. "You make one ashamed, mother."

"I need not tell you her name, then?" she said.

But he shook his head.

"I must know it now, I think," he said, gravely.

She was silent a moment, then she said in a low voice:

"It is Lenore, Leycester."

He drew away from her, so that her arm fell from his shoulder, and looked her full in the face.

Before him rose the proud, imperial figure, before him stood the lovely face of Lenore, with its crown of golden hair, and its deep, eloquent eyes of violet, and beside it, hovering like a spirit, the face of his girl-love.

The violet eyes seemed to gaze at him with all the strength of conscious loveliness, seemed to bend upon him with a glance of defiance, as if they said—"I am here, waiting: I smile, you cannot resist me!" and the dark, tender eyes beside them seemed to turn upon him with gentle, passionate pleading, praying him to be constant and faithful.

"Lenore!" he said, in a low voice. "Mother, ought you to have said this?"

She did not shrink from his almost reproachful gaze.

"Why should I hesitate when my son's happiness is at stake?" she said,