DOWN BY THE BROOK AMONG THE FERNS.
Clara put on her hat and wandered off into the park, as happy as a bird.
She had found the dearest old fairy godmother. She saw a glorious light
breaking in upon the life of her stepmother, and out of all this
generous conduct in the old countess sprang a vague hope that she might
yet be won to sanction her marriage with the man of her choice.
She took no heed of the way, but wandered on, treading the earth like a
sylph, and breaking into little snatches of song whenever the birds in
the branches put her in mind of it. She was descending into a little,
ferny hollow, with a brook creeping along the bottom, along which a
narrow footpath ran, when the crackle of a broken branch, and the quick
tread of a foot, made her pause and look at the opposite bank, down
which a young man was coming, with more swiftness than he seemed to
desire, for he only saved himself from a plunge in the brook by leaping
over it, with a bound that brought him to Clara's side. It was Lord
Hilton.
"Forgive me, if I came near running you down," he said, with laughter in
his eyes, and taking off his hat; "it was neck or nothing with me, after
I once got one downward plunge. I inquired for you at the castle, and
they told me that you had just gone out of sight in this direction, so I
followed and am here."
Clara held out her hand, with the sweet, joyous laugh of a pleased
child. She was very happy, just then, and he saw it in her eyes.
"But you have been long in coming," she said. "I told grandmamma about
our journey together, and she has been expecting you at Houghton every
day."
"And you?"
"Of course, I have been dreadfully disappointed. Are you aware that it
is more than a fortnight since you bought those peaches for me?"
"But you will approve my reasons for keeping away, when I tell you what
they are."
"Perhaps--I doubt it; but tell me."
"You will not be angry?"
"No."
"Not if I tell you the plain truth like an honest man?"
"I love the truth. Why should it offend me?"
"Lady Clara, I have almost resolved to make a confidante of you."
Clara brushed some fallen leaves from a rock, near which they were
standing, and sat down, motioning him to take the vacant place by her
side.
"There--now let us begin."
"Do you guess why I did not come before, Lady Clara?"
"No--I have not the least idea. Perhaps you did not like me, or were
shocked with my hat; poor thing, it is getting awfully shabby."
"Shall I tell you?"
"Of course; why not?"
"Because the old gentleman over yonder and my lady at Houghton, had set
their hearts upon it."
"Set their hearts upon it. How?"
"They have decreed that I shall fall in love with you, and you with me,
at first sight."
Clara stared at him a moment, with her widening blue eyes, and then
broke into a laugh that set all the birds about her to singing in a
joyous chorus.
"What, you and I?"
"Exactly."
"But you have more sense. You could not be induced to oblige them. I
feel quite sure."
"But why, pray? Am I so very stupid?"
"No; but you are so very kind, and would not do anything so cruel."
Lord Hilton laughed; he could not help it.
"But why would it be cruel?"
"Because--because it would get me into trouble. Grandmamma is a lovely
old angel, and to oblige her I would fall in love with fifty men if it
were possible, especially after what she has done to-day: but it is not
possible."
"And the old gentleman at the opposite side of the valley is good as
gold, and I should like to oblige him; and sometimes I feel as if it
could be done, so far as I am concerned, but for one thing."
"And what is that?"
"Lady Clara, if I had not been fatally in love already, I should by this
time have adored you."
The color came and went in the girl's face. She tore a handful of ferns
from the rock, and dropped them into the water at her feet; then she
lifted her eyes to the young man's face, with the innocent confidence of
a child. Her voice was low and timid as she spoke again; but the ring of
modest truth was there.
"Lord Hilton, I am very young; but in what you have said, I can see that
you and I ought to understand each other. You love another person--I,
too, am beloved."
A shade of disappointment swept the young man's features. He had not
wished this fair girl to care for him, yet the thought that it was
impossible brought a little annoyance with it.
"And yourself?"
"I have permitted a man to say he loved me, and did not rebuke him;
because every word he spoke made my heart leap."
"But will the old countess consent?"
"I thought so--I hoped so, till you startled me with this idea about
yourself. Oh! be firm, be firm in hating me. Don't leave the whole
battle to a poor little girl."
"Perhaps I shall not feel all your earnestness, for there is no hope in
the future for me, with or without consent. I can never turn back to the
past, though I am not villain enough to lay a heart which contains the
image of another at any woman's feet, without giving her a full
knowledge of that which has gone before. The love which I confess to
you, Lady Clara, was put resolutely behind me before we met."
Quick as thought a suspicion flashed through the girl's brain. She
turned her eyes full upon the handsome head and face of the young man,
and examined his features keenly. His hat was off; he was bending
earnestly toward her.
"Lord Hilton, you sat in a box in the opera next to us on the night when
that young American singer broke down. I remember your head now. You
were leaning from the box when she fainted; her eyes were turned upon
you as she fell. She is the woman you love."
"Say whom I loved, and Heaven knows I did love her; but she fled from me
without a word, to expose herself upon that stage. I thought her the
daughter of a respectable man, at least; when I am told in every
club-house, she is the nameless child of that woman, Olympia. I would
not believe it, till the actress confirmed the story with her own lips;
then I learned that her home was with this woman, and that she, a
creature I had believed innocent as the wild blossoms, had used her
glorious voice for the entertainment of her mother's Sunday evening
parties."
Lady Clara grew pale, and her eyes began to flash.
"You are doing great wrong to a noble and good young lady," she said, in
a clear, ringing voice, from which all laughter had gone out. "You are
unjust, cruel--wickedly cruel--both to yourself and her. I have no
patience with you!"
"Do you know Caroline, then? But that is impossible."
"Impossible--what? That I should know the daughter of Olympia? But I do
know her. There was a time, I honestly believe, when we were children
together, cared for by the same nurse. This I can assure you, Lord
Hilton: she was not brought up by the actress; never saw her, in truth,
until she was over sixteen years old, when the woman, hearing of her
genius and beauty, claimed her as a chattel rather than a child."
"Are you sure of this, Lady Clara?" inquired the young man, greatly
disturbed.
"I know it. The poor young lady, brought up with such delicate care,
educated as if she were one day to become a peeress of the land, took a
terrible dislike to the stage, and, so long as she dared, protested
against the life that ambitious actress had marked out for her. That
night you saw her she was forced upon the stage after praying upon her
knees to be spared. Her acting, from the first, was desperation. She saw
you, and it became despair; and you could doubt her--you could leave
her. Lord Hilton, I hate you!"
"I begin to hate myself," said the young man in a low voice; "but even
now, what can I do? What power have I to wrest her from the influence of
that woman?"
"What power? The power of honest and generous love. Ask her to marry
you."
Lord Hilton answered with a faint, bitter laugh.
"Ask her to marry me, and, with that act, proclaim myself a beggar! I
tell you, Lady Clara, there is not upon this earth a creature so
dependent as a nobleman with nothing but expectations. Were I to follow
your advice the doors of my home would be closed against me. I should
have a title, by courtesy, to offer my wife, and nothing more. She
would, perhaps, be compelled to go on the stage to support me--a poor
substitute for these two vast estates which these old people hope to
unite in us."