A Mad Love, Charlotte Mary Brame [read this if txt] 📗

you to stop and think."

Lord Chandos laughed; his handsome face was flushed and eager.

"The man who hesitates is lost," he said. "All the thinking in the world cannot alter matters, nor make me love my darling less."

"There is an old proverb I should like to recommend to you," said Sir Frank Euston; "it is this--a young man married is a young man marred."

"I am quite as willing to be marred as to be married," said the young lord, "and married I will be if all the powers on earth conspire against me."

"I know how useless all arguments are," said his friend, "when a man determines to be foolish; but do think for one moment of the terrible disappointment to your parents."

"I do not see it; they have no right to be disappointed; my father married to please himself, why should I not do the same?"

"You are outraging all the laws of your class," said Sir Frank. "However beautiful a farmer's niece may be, we cannot suppose even a miracle could fit her to take the place of the Countess of Lanswell."

A hot flush came over the young lord's face; a strange quiet came into his voice.

"We will discuss what you like, Frank, but you must not touch the young lady's name, we will leave that out of the question."

"You have asked me to be the witness of your marriage," said Sir Frank, "and that entitles me to speak my mind. I do speak it, frankly, honestly, plainly, as I should thank God for any friend to speak to a brother of my own if he felt inclined to make a simpleton of himself."

"I call myself a sensible man to marry for love, not a simpleton," said Lord Chandos grandly.

"My dear Lance," said his friend, "you make just this one mistake; you are not a man at all, you are a boy."

He stopped suddenly, for the young lord looked at him with a defiant, fierce face.

"You must not say that again, Frank, or we shall be friends no longer."

"I do not want to offend you, Lance; but you are really too young to think of marriage. Your tastes are not formed yet; that which pleases you now you will dislike in six or ten years' time. I assure you that if you marry this farmer's niece now, in ten years' time you will repent it in sackcloth and ashes. She is not fit, either by manner, education, or anything else, to be your mother's daughter, and you know it; you know that when the glamour of her beauty is over you will wonder at your own madness and folly. Be warned in time."

"You may as well reason with a madman as a man in love," said the young lordling, "and I am in love."

"And you are mad," said Sir Frank, quietly; "one day you will know how mad."

Lord Chandos laughed.

"There is method in my madness. Come, Frank, we have been such friends I would do anything you asked me."

"I should never ask you to do anything so foolish, Lance; I wish that I had not given my word of honor to keep your secret; I am quite sure that I ought to send word to the earl and countess at once; I cannot, as I have promised not to do so, but I regret it."

"My dear Frank, nothing in the world would stop me; if anything were done to prevent my marriage now, I would simply await another and more favorable opportunity; my mind is made up. I love the girl with all my heart, and she, no other, shall be my wife. If you refuse to act for me, well and good; I shall find some one else."

"If you would but be reasonable, Lance," said his friend.

"I am not reasonable. When did you ever see reason and love go hand in hand together?"

"They should do so always, and do, when the love is worth having."

"Now, Frank, I have listened patiently; I have heard all that you have had to say; I have weighed every argument, and I remain unconvinced. You have but to say whether you will do this to oblige me or not."

"If I do it, remember, it is under protest, Lance."

"Never mind what it is under, if you only promise."

"I promise, to save you from greater risk, but I do it against my will, my reason, my good sense, my conscience, and everything else."

Lord Chandos laughed aloud.

"You will forget everything of that kind," he said, "when you see Leone."

And the two friends parted, mutually dissatisfied.


CHAPTER VIII.


THE PROPHECY.

"A very impatient young man," said the good old vicar. "No man in his senses would want to be married before ten in the morning. I call it unchristian."

Good old Mr. Barnes had been roused from his early slumbers by the announcement that the young man had come to be married.

Married, while the early morning sun was shining, and the birds singing their morning hymn.

He was almost blind, this good old vicar, who had lived so long at Oheton. He was very deaf, and could hardly hear, but then he did not require very keen sight or hearing at Oheton; there was never more than one marriage in a year, and funerals were very rare; but to be called before nine in the morning to perform the marriage ceremony was something unheard of. He had duly announced the bans, and no one had taken the least notice of them; but to come so early, it was positively cruel.

Others had risen early that morning. Leone had not slept well, for this July morning, which was to bring such mingled joy and sorrow to others, was a day of deepest emotion to her.

Her love-dream was to be realized. She was to marry the ardent young lover who swore that he would not live without her.

She had thought more of her love than of the worldly advantages it would bring her. She had not thought much of those until they stood, on the evening before their wedding-day, once more by the mill-stream. It was bright moonlight, for the smiling summer day was dead. It was their farewell to the beautiful spot they both loved.

"I am so glad," said Lord Chandos, "that we can say good-bye to it by the light of the moon. I wonder, Leone, when we shall see the mill-stream again? I have a fancy that the pretty water has helped me in my wooing."

As they sat there the wind rose and stirred the branches of the alder-trees. In some way the great wavy masses of dark hair became unfastened, and fell like a thick soft veil over Leone's shoulders. Lord Chandos touched it caressingly with his hand.

"What beautiful hair, Leone--how thick and soft; how beautiful those wavy lines are--what makes them?"

"A turn of Dame Nature's fingers," she replied, laughingly.

"I should like to see diamonds shining in these coils of hair," he said. "Leone, one of the first things we must do to-morrow when we reach London, is to buy a very handsome traveling-dress. I have written to-day to my father to ask him to meet us at Dunmore House."

She repeated the words.

"Where is Dunmore House?" she asked.

"I forgot," he said, "that all places so familiar to me are strange to you. One of my father's titles is Baron Dunmore, and his London residence is called Dunmore House. We shall meet him there to-morrow, and then you will be my wife."

For the first time she realized what an immense difference there was in their positions. She glanced at him in sudden fear.

"Lance," she said, "shall I seem very much out of place in your home, and among your friends?"

"My darling, you would grace any home," he replied; "mine has had no fairer mistress in all the generations it has stood."

"I am half frightened," she said, gently.

"You need not be, sweet. Before this time next year all London will know and admire the beautiful Lady Chandos."

"It seems a long leap to take in life," she said, "from being Farmer Noel's niece to bear the name of Lady Chandos."

"You will grace the name, Leone," he replied. "I shall be the proudest man in England--I shall have the most beautiful wife in England. This is our last separation, our last parting; after this, we need never part."

He stooped down and caught some of the running water in his hand.

"A libation," he said, as he poured it back again. "I feel as though I were losing a friend when I leave the mill-stream."

Loving and loved, no thought came to them there of how they should see the mill-stream again.

"Leone, Lady Chandos." More than once that evening she said those words to herself. It was after eight when she came in, and the farmer had long finished his supper; he sat thinking over his pipe.

"You are late, my lady lass," he said; "sit down and talk to me before I go to rest."

Obediently enough, she sat down while he told her the history of his visits to the different markets. She heard, but did not take in the sense of one single word he uttered. She was saying to herself over and over again, that by this time to-morrow she should be Lady Chandos. Her happiness would have been complete if she could have told her uncle. He had been so kind to her. They were opposite as light and darkness, they had not one idea in common, yet he had been good to her and she loved him. She longed to tell him of her coming happiness and grandeur, but she did not dare to break her word.

Robert Noel looked up in wonder. There was his beautiful niece kneeling at his feet, her eyes dim with tears.

"Uncle," she was saying, "look at me, listen to me. I want to thank you. I want you always to remember that on this night I knelt at your feet and thanked you with a grateful heart for all you have ever done for me."

"Why, my lady lass," he replied, "you have always been to me as a child of my own," he replied.

"A tiresome child," she said, half laughing, half crying. "See. I take this dear, brown hand, so hard with work, and I kiss it, uncle, and thank you from my heart."

He could not recover himself, so to speak. He looked at her in blank, wordless amazement.

"In the years to come," she continued, "when you think of me, you must say to yourself, that, no matter what I did, I loved you."

"No matter what you did you loved me," he repeated. "Yes, I shall remember that."

She kissed the toil-worn face, leaving him so entirely bewildered that the only fear was lest he might sit up all night trying to forget it.

Then she went to her room, but not to sleep--her heart beat, every pulse thrilled. This was to be the last night in her old home--the last of her girlish life; to-morrow she would be Lady Chandos--wife of the young lover whom she loved with all her heart and soul.

The birds woke her with their song, it was their wedding-day. She would not see