A FRIEND IN NEED.
A week slipped by on magical wings.
Some delightful excursion, drive or entertainment was planned for every
day, and the guests of Sir Anthony and Lady Hamilton were indeed a “gay
party,” as Wil had prophesied they would be.
Had it not been for the two that were playing at cross purposes, there
would have been nothing to mar the delight of any one.
If Arley Wentworth had only been Lady Elaine, with her title and twenty
thousand a year, or if her position and fortune had been equal to hers,
Philip Paxton would have bowed on worshiping knees at her shrine
before that week was over.
He was bewitched and fascinated by her--she acquired a power over him
as no one had ever won before; he never heard her voice without a
thrill--she never came near him without his pulses leaped; the very
sound of her light laugh and step--the rustle even of her dress was
music to him.
But, alas! he had decreed that it would be folly for him to pass by
the greater prize for the sake of a little love; he was ambitious for
a brilliant future, which fortune and position would at once secure
for him, and he could not afford to sacrifice it for the sake of a
foolish sentiment, which, at the most, could only give him a little
more domestic happiness; and perhaps, after all, he might learn to love
Lady Elaine just as well if he should marry her; and he had made up his
mind to accomplish this if possible, notwithstanding the confidential
confession of his friend, and the wrong that he would thus do him.
“Wil is certain to be a rich man anyway--he will inherit all his
father’s large property, and it would not be fair for him to have two
such fortunes, while it is only by my wits and the hardest work that I
am making my way along in the world.”
Thus he reasoned the matter with himself, shutting his eyes to the
fact that he was betraying the confidence of his friend, using him
dishonorably, and doing violence to the nobler feeling of his own
nature.
But he did not progress very rapidly in his undertaking for, just as
he would succeed in getting Lady Elaine nicely to himself, and perhaps
right in the middle of a fine speech, something would be sure to
interrupt them and break up their _tete-a-tete_.
But he never suspected that there was any “malice prepense” about it,
or that Arley Wentworth was thwarting him in every possible way--that
she was employing all her arts, and making herself so delightfully
agreeable to him whenever the opportunity offered, just for the sake of
keeping him from poaching on forbidden ground, and thus giving Wil the
desire of his heart.
But it was so, nevertheless; she watched them unceasingly, and if she
saw Philip about to seek Lady Elaine, she would instantly dart up
to him, in her bright, bewitching way, upon some pretense or other,
claim his attention, and draw him into conversation or some playful
controversy, until Wil could capture his lady-love; then, laughing in
her sleeve over her success, yet with a strange pain gradually creeping
into her heart, she would suddenly remember some engagement, work, or
errand, and slip away again, leaving him to his own devices.
“What is your opinion of Mr. Paxton?” she asked her one day, when,
having dressed earlier than usual, she ran into Lady Elaine’s room to
have a half-hour’s chat before dinner.
“I think he is very agreeable and intelligent,” Lady Elaine quietly
replied.
“Yes--a trifle superior--a little above the generality of young men,
isn’t he?” Arley asked, with a peculiar emphasis, and a covert glance
at the fair face opposite her.
A delicate flush rose to the creamy cheek, and the lovely blue eyes
were hidden beneath their white lids.
“Is he?” queried Lady Elaine, with an assumption of cool indifference
that amused Arley exceedingly.
“I asked you to pass judgment upon him; but if you want my opinion
of him I suppose I can give it, and of the other young gentlemen
of our party, too,” she retorted, with a wicked gleam in her dark
eyes. “I think he is very handsome. You seldom see such magnificent
eyes in anybody; and he has such a finely-shaped head, so square and
well-developed. Then look at the life and energy in his every movement.
Why, if Fred Vane had one-half as much, what a man he would make with
his opportunities. Then he--Mr. Paxton, I mean--is so cultivated and
entertaining, he must have improved his time well while at Oxford;
while as for Wil----”
She hesitated purposely, and the sly puss got just the reward she had
been seeking.
“I’m sure, Arley, you are very unfair in your criticisms, especially
when you are a guest in the home of Wil Hamilton. You should not draw
odious comparisons,” Lady Elaine said, with a sudden flash of spirit,
her eyes gleaming and darkening, until they looked like two purple,
starry-hearted pansies, while a vivid spot of red burned on each cheek.
“Odious comparisons!” Arley repeated, drooping her lids to hide the
dancing spirit in her own eyes. “I don’t think I’ve said anything very
bad. I was merely expressing my admiration for the recent addition to
our party, and--don’t you know? I was expected to admire him; for,
if you remember Wil took special pains to impress his superiority
upon me long before his arrival, and I’m sure I do not wish to be
unappreciative or to disappoint anybody----”
“But you need not depreciate others for the sake of lauding him. Wil
Hamilton, of all others, least deserves it,” interrupted Lady Elaine,
with a heightening color.
“I depreciate Wil Hamilton!” cried mischievous Arley, with well-assumed
astonishment. “My dear Elaine, you misunderstand me entirely--indeed,
you did not even allow me to finish what I was going to say about him.”
“What were you going to say?” the fair girl asked, with a searching
look at her friend’s dimpling face, and then dropping her telltale eyes.
“I was going to remark that, as for Wil, there was no use drawing any
comparisons, for--he is without a peer in my estimation.”
A little smile of pleasure flitted over Lady Elaine’s sweet lips,
the waxen lids fluttered over her downcast eyes, while a vivid blush
suffused her fair face, burning up into the waves of golden hair above
her forehead, and creeping down among the folds of snowy lace about her
white throat.
Arley, observing it, laughed outright and clapped her dimpled hands
with glee at these signs of the state of her friend’s heart. Then,
leaning suddenly forward, she kissed her on the forehead.
“My beautiful ‘Lily of Mordaunt,’ you are a darling,” she said. “You
are pure and true to your heart’s core; you are loyal, you are brave,
and if I am ever in need of a friend, I know that you will not fail me.”
How vividly she recalled that assertion two years later!
Lady Hamilton was to give a large dinner party that evening to a number
of her friends in the county, and there were also several distinguished
people from London invited.
Lady Elaine was very glad of the presence of these visitors, for they
would serve to shield her somewhat from observation, and she was too
conscious of her recently discovered secret to wish to be at all
conspicuous.
She had chosen for the occasion a dress of pure white, of some soft,
gauzy material, and unrelieved by an atom of color, save a cluster of
dark, waxen-green leaves, which she had fastened at her throat with a
single diamond, that glittered among them like a huge drop of dew.
“Mademoiselle is perfect,” her maid had cried, when her toilet was
completed; “there will be no one below one-half so lovely.”
“Hush, Nanette! you must not flatter me,” her mistress said, with a
reproving smile. “I know,” she added, “that you have taken a great deal
of pains with my dress, and it is beautiful--it pleases me very much;
but I have no doubt there will be far richer toilets here to-night than
mine.”
“There will be no one so lovely,” persisted Nanette, while her admiring
eyes rested affectionately upon that fair face and symmetrical figure
reflected in the full-length mirror.
It was a little late when she entered the drawing-room; she had waited
purposely, hoping to be able to slip in among the crowd very quietly
and thus escape observation.
But, as it happened, this brought upon her the very thing that she had
wished to avoid.
As the curtains to one of the arches of the drawing-room parted to
admit the peerless girl, there was a momentary hush, and almost every
eye was fixed upon her with surprise and admiration, for she made an
entrancing picture there in her white trailing robes against the warm,
rich crimson of the curtains.
But after the first heart-throb of dismay, as she saw the sea of faces
turned toward her, she passed to the side of Annie Hamilton, who was
assisting her mother to do the honors of the occasion.
Wil, at the opposite side of the room, beholding her, felt his heart
bound within him with mingled exultation and pain--exultation over her
surpassing loveliness and pain lest something would cause him to fail
to win her.
“She is like a stately Calla in her beauty; but her spirit, so sweet
and pure, is like the fragrance of the water lily,” he breathed, while
an almost unconquerable desire possessed him to clasp her to him and
bear her away from the sight and sound of every one, and pour forth the
burning love that was consuming him.
“Who is that beautiful girl?” everybody asked; and they were greatly
surprised on being told that she was Sir Anthony’s ward and the
daughter of the Duke of Mordaunt, and then eagerly pressed forward for
introductions.
“Jer-i-co!” ejaculated a young sprig of nobility, who was honoring the
occasion with his presence, “won’t she make a sensation when she comes
out? Twenty thousand a year! Ah, won’t there be a fluttering among the
birds of prey when that bit of news becomes known?” and he immediately
began to flutter his own feathers, and to edge toward the object of his
admiration, to be presented.
Philip Paxton flushed to his very brow as he too watched her enter the
room.
“I never dreamed that any one could be so exquisitely lovely,” he said.
“She is not so sprightly and entertaining as the Wentworth Rose,” he
added, his eye wandering to where Arley stood, and who was also in
white--simple white tulle, with dashes of scarlet verbenas in its
graceful drapery, and a bunch of them in her white gloved hands.
She was as bright and cheery as some happy bird, and he sighed as he
looked at her.
“I wish she had more of Arley’s spirit and wit,” he continued, his
glance returning to Lady Elaine, “but,” as he caught sight of that
costly glittering gem among the green leaves--it was one of the
Mordaunt diamonds, of which there were many and worth a fortune in
themselves--“but I shall marry her if I can.”
As it happened, it fell to him to take her out to dinner, and owing
to the excitement of the occasion, and something, perhaps, to the
admiration which she had excited, and of which she could not fail
to be conscious, she was unusually bright and animated. She chatted
and laughed almost as freely and merrily as Arley herself, who was
bewitching the son of an earl as fast as ever she could; though she
had frowned threateningly and cast a look of commiseration at poor Wil
when she saw Lady Elaine upon Philip Paxton’s arm, while he, Wil, had
to take down a spinster of forty, who wore corkscrew curls and was
otherwise frightful in a toilet of mulberry and green.
The dinner was, apparently, a brilliant success, and the guests in
their happiest humor.
No one, save Arley, perhaps, suspected the pain and passion that were
raging in the breast of Sir Anthony’s heir, while he covertly watched
his love glow and brighten in the presence of her attendant, as he had
never seen her do before.
“Shall I learn to hate my dearest friend?” he fiercely asked himself,
as he saw him bend almost fondly toward his companion and whisper words
which brought a more vivid color to her cheek, and made her droop her
white lids in maidenly confusion.
He grew so furiously jealous and disturbed that, as soon as the ladies
had withdrawn, he excused himself from the table and stole away out of
the house, and out of the sound of the mirth and laughter of the gay
company.
He wanted to be alone a while; he needed to calm his excited nerves and
to try and exorcise, if possible, the spirit of evil that was rising up
and taking possession of him.
He wandered down to the lake, his head bared to the cool evening
breeze, for his brow was hot and feverish; and here loosing his wherry,
he leaped into it and pushed off from the shore for a hard row in the
moonlight.