A BID FOR LOVE.
For all his outward show of composure, he was feeling anything but
comfortable, and as he stood with his hand upon the drawing-room door,
there was a strange look upon his face, a look that expressed something
more than the usual lover’s despondent timidity, something more than
the ordinary nervousness; it was rather that of a man who was playing
a dangerous and a desperate game, and who stands upon the brink of a
precipice, which, lined as it may be with flowers, means, if he should
fall, death and destruction.
“The old man was easy,” he muttered, “but it’s different with her. By
Heaven, if she knew!”
The thought, whatever it was, seemed to increase his uneasiness, and he
wiped the perspiration from his face, which had suddenly grown white
under the reflection.
Then he opened the door. Olivia was alone, and seated at the piano, but
not playing. Her hands were lying clasped loosely in her lap, her face
and her whole attitude expressive of complete abstraction--so complete
that she did not hear him open the door, and it was not until he was
close beside her and had spoken her name, that she knew he had entered.
“Mr. Bradstone!” she said, with a slight start. “I thought you had
gone,” she added, coldly.
The sullen look came into his eyes for a moment.
“No, I ought to have gone; but I have been talking with the squire,” he
said.
“Yes?” she said. “Is my father in the library?” and she half arose, a
plain intimation that she should, if Mr. Bradstone would leave her free
to, join him.
“Yes, he is in the library; but will you wait a minute, Miss Olivia----”
She sank back, and began putting the music together.
“You can’t guess what we have been talking about, I’ll be bound,” he
said, with a feeble attempt at a laugh.
Olivia just frowned at him.
“I haven’t any intention of trying,” she said, not insolently, but
with an indifference which was sublime. It made Bartley Bradstone
wince--simply wince.
“You’d be surprised if I told you it was--you,” he said.
She looked at him now, a look of calm displeasure and incredulity.
“I should, indeed!” she said.
“But we were,” he continued, trying to smile, and leaning on the
piano; “we were talking about you, and have been for some time. I--in
fact--don’t be startled, don’t be angry--I went to ask him to--to let
me--in fact--I’ve told the squire that I love you, Olivia.”
Her face did not change, not a muscle moved. She simply regarded him
with cold incredulity, and the amazement which one expresses at the
impertinence of an inferior.
“You don’t believe me; but I did. You must know--you must have
seen,” he went on, huskily, his hands clasping and unclasping each
other, “that--that I loved you. I do love you; I’ve loved you ever
since--Olivia, won’t you say a word? Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, don’t
stare at me like that! Your father did not treat me like this----”
“My father?” she said, after a pause. “You told my father what you have
told me?”
“Yes, I did. I know what’s proper, and I went and told him before I
spoke to you. And now, Olivia, now you know, what do you say? Wait a
moment. I--I’m afraid I haven’t done the best for myself. I’m--I’m
not a lady’s man, and I’ve sprung it upon you too sharply. But it was
dangerous, this hanging about and waiting, and--and I got anxious. But
you know it now. I’m not a bad sort of fellow, I fancy, and I can offer
you----”
She rose from the seat and moved toward the door. He stood in front of
her, desperate--imploring.
“Let me pass, please,” she said, quietly.
“Wait, wait!” he exclaimed, huskily. “You’re treating me badly, like
the dirt under your feet, by Heaven! This isn’t the way I was treated
by your father.”
Olivia stopped and looked at him.
“You are right and I am wrong,” she said. “I beg your pardon, Mr.
Bradstone! This is not the way my father would treat you. Whatever he
may have felt, he would have behaved with courtesy. Yes, I beg your
pardon! You tell me that”--she paused, as if the words cost her an
effort--“that you love me, and ask me to be your wife?”
“I do, I do!” he broke in. “I love you to distraction! I haven’t a
thought in the world but you! You are just life to me; I swear it! I’ve
told the squire what I will do--I’d spend my last penny in making you
happy! I’d lay down my life----”
She stopped him with a cold, but queenly gesture.
“Please,” she said, in a low voice, “I am sorry, very sorry, Mr.
Bradstone, but it cannot be; I mean that I cannot be your wife.”
“You can’t? You refuse?” he stammered, his small eyes growing red, and
an ugly stiffness coming over his mouth.
“I do refuse, as gently, as--as considerately as I can,” said Olivia.
“I am grateful to you for the honor----” She stopped. “Oh, let me pass,
please, and never, never”--and her dark brows came down straight and
majestic as Diana’s--“never speak like this to me again!”
He did not move; but stood regarding her with feverish and sullen
resentment.
“That’s not what your father says,” he said.
Olivia looked at him with imperious questioning.
“What do you say?” she said.
“I say that it wasn’t in this way your father heard me,” he answered,
sullenly. “He didn’t treat me like this--he consented.”
Her eyes flashed back the retort, and as eloquently as eyes could
speak, said: “You lie!”
His face grew red; it had been white a moment ago.
“You don’t believe me?” he said.
“I do not! Let me pass, if you please, Mr. Bradstone.”
“But I say it’s true!” he exclaimed; “I say he consented! He’s ready to
accept me for a son-in-law if you’ll say ‘Yes,’ and----” He paused. “I
think you will say ‘Yes,’ with all your cursed pride!”
The word slipped from him, and he would have recalled it the moment
after he had uttered it.
But its effect upon Olivia was not what he expected.
“You are right, Mr. Bradstone,” she said, quietly; “I am proud, and apt
to forget that others have as much pride as I have. I beg your pardon
again. You have misunderstood my father; I am sure of that----”
“No, I haven’t,” he put in.
“I know my father,” she said, as quietly as before, “and it is
impossible that he should have--have spoken as you say he did. Let
there be an end of this. I thank you for the honor--it is an honor for
any woman to receive an offer from a man--I thank you, and beg you to
believe that it is impossible that I should accept it.”
“Why?” he persisted.
Her lovely eyes rested on him for a moment, then looked aside.
His face went white.
“I understand,” he said, hoarsely, “you--you think I am no more than
the dirt under your feet. You think, because I made my own way in the
world, and haven’t got an old name or a title, that it’s an insult for
me to ask you to be my wife! You wouldn’t treat Lord Bertie or--or that
fellow Faradeane like this----”
At Bertie’s name a smile flickered about her lips, but at Faradeane’s a
wave of color swept over her face and neck.
“Ah!” he said, with passionate anger. “That’s true, I can see. But let
me tell you that I think myself as good as either of them. Stop”--for
she had made another attempt to pass him--“as good, and better. Could
either of them offer what I do? I’ve just told your father that I’d
settle fifty thousand pounds upon you. I tell you now that that’s
nothing to me; I didn’t make it more for fear of hurting his feelings;
but I tell you I’ll settle a hundred, two hundred thousand----”
She put out her hand.
“Oh, hush!” she said, as if his words covered her with shame. “If it
were a million----”
“Oh, I know,” he broke in, huskily; “it’s as he said. You don’t care
for money. It’s all the same to you whether a man’s poor or rich; but
money’s something. Olivia----”
“I am usually addressed as Miss Olivia Vanley,” said Olivia, flashing
down upon him.
He bit his lip.
“I say it’s all the same to you; but it isn’t to him. No! And I’ll bet
that before we part to-night you’ll consent, as he did.”
She looked at him, calmly--questioningly. For a moment there arose in
her mind the suspicion that he had been drinking, and he read it in her
eyes.
“No, I’m not drunk!” he said, bitterly; “I’m only half mad, driven so
by your words and looks! And I mean what I say--you will consent, as he
did!”
“Consent to marry you!” said Olivia, stung into retort.
“Yes,” he said, sullenly; “for his sake, if not for mine or yours.”
“For his sake--for my father’s?” she said.
He nodded.
“Yes. Look here, Olivia, we’ve been beating about the bush long enough.
You’ve treated me like a dog--yes, you have; or like the dirt under
your feet. And I don’t deserve it. No, by God! for I spared the old
man----”
“You spared----”
“Yes, I did. I could have told him what a cleft stick I’d got him in,
but I didn’t; I knew you wouldn’t like it. I knew you’d rather he
remained in ignorance till the affair was over.”
“I’m afraid you are wasting your breath, Mr. Bradstone,” said Olivia.
“I do not in the least comprehend you----”
“But you will presently,” he said, with a half-cunning, half-furious
smile. “Look here; your father, the squire, is, as he put it, a
fraud----”
She drew herself up, and sent a lightning shot from her eyes that made
him quail.
“Leave the room!” she exclaimed, pointing to the door.
“Stop!” he said. “Wait!” for she had swept, with the dignity of an
insulted goddess toward the bell. “So help me Heaven, it is true! He
will tell you so himself, if you are foolish enough to ask him. He is
a fraud--well, well, he’s a ruined man, then. Up to his neck in debts,
the Grange is sunk, the very furniture under a bill of sale; nothing
can save him--nothing. He will have to turn out, neck and crop. Turn
out! You don’t know what that means. But he does! The day he leaves
here a ruined, broken man, dates his death-warrant! It does, by Heaven!
and out he goes, unless you accept me, Olivia!”
“Unless--unless----Oh, you are mad!” she panted.
“Am I? No, I’m not. It’s you who are mad--with pride. Do you think I’m
an idiot and don’t know what I’m talking about? What I tell you is
true; and what is more, I hold your father’s bonds----”
“You----”
“Yes,” and he nodded, with a smile. “I’ve got ’em, one and all. At
a word from me, he can be sold up and turned out. A word, a sign,
and”--with a sudden, sullen light in his suspicious, restless
eyes--“and, by God! I’ll do it if----Look here, it will rest with
you! Say you’ll be my wife--by Heaven! I’ll do my best to make you
happy--and the day we’re married I’ll put the whole of these bonds and
mortgages into your hands--you can light a fire with them. And I’ll do
more; I’ll give you twenty thousand pounds--fifty--what do I care! I
tell you I’m a millionaire! Money is dirt, stones, dross--you can fling
it broadcast, roll in it----”
She stopped him with a gesture, entreating, piteous, desperate.
“Does--does he--my father--know this?” she panted.
He smiled cunningly.
“No,” he said. “No; I knew better than to tell him. I leave it to you
to decide whether he goes out of the Grange to die of a broken heart.
He doesn’t know it.”
“Thank God!” she cried. “Oh, father, father!” and she sank into a chair
and covered her face with her hands.
He stole up to her and ventured--actually dared--to lay his hot hand
upon her white arm.
“Hush! hush!” he stammered, “I can hear him coming. Don’t--don’t cry.
You can’t help yourself. I’ll--I’ll leave you to think of it. Remember,
it’s life or death for him, just that--life or death,” and with a
thirsty, wistful look, as if he would have liked to catch her up in his
arms, he stole from the room.
As he paused outside the door to gain his breath, a smile of triumph
shone on his face, wet with perspiration; then suddenly it changed, and
his features were momentarily distorted by an expression of abject fear.
Then he seemed to shake off the emotion, and with a husky laugh, he
muttered:
“I’ve got her, and by Heaven, I’ll do it! She’s worth it!”