OLYMPIA'S DEFEAT.
Olympia stood, panic-stricken, in her fantastic little boudoir, when she
reached home and found a note from Caroline, bidding her farewell, and
stating that, not being able to comply with her wishes, she had accepted
the other alternative, and left her house forever, in company with her
father and the old servant, who had been so faithful to her. The note
breathed of sadness and sorrow at the manner of her leaving, and, if
firm, was entirely respectful; but it said nothing of her plans, nor
told where she was going.
Now, Olympia thought that she had provided against the possibility of a
choice between her cruel commands, by depriving both Caroline and her
father of all means by which they could leave her. She had gone out,
certain of the girl's forced submission, and came back to find her gone.
She crushed the note in her hand, flung it down and stamped upon it
furiously; for it seemed as if half a million of gold had melted down
into the bit of paper, which she could only trample under her feet in
impotent wrath.
"The viper! the ingrate! the thing made of iron! Oh, if it were her! if
it were her! I would trample her through the floor! Where did she get
the money? He had nothing--she had nothing. I thought I had chained them
to me by their poverty; then I came home, so exhilarated by this great
offer from the manager--and she is gone! So beautiful! and such a voice!
Gone! gone! Oh, what a loss!"
Here Olympia, who had never known what self-control was, flung herself
on a low, silken couch, heaped with cushions, like a divan, and began to
pound them with her little fists, and spurn them with the soiled white
satin slippers, in which she had been to rehearsal. This burst of
hysterical fury would have brought down the house had she plunged into
such naturalness on the stage. But she started up, and after snatching a
mosaic card-receiver from her footman, and dashing it against a marble
statuette of Venus coming from the bath, thus demolishing what little
drapery the poor thing was trying to make the most of, came partially to
herself and demanded what the fellow wanted.
The footman, shivering under his blue and silver, pointed to a card
which lay on the carpet.
"Why don't you pick it up?" cried Olympia, stamping her satin slipper
into a cluster of roses, that seemed to disappear from the carpet.
The man took up the card and handed it to her, with a reverence so
humble that she longed to trample him down with the mock roses, and get
him out of her sight; but, as he towered above her a foot or two, the
process seemed difficult, so she ordered him out of the room, and looked
at the card.
"Lord Hilton! Dear me!"
Olympia made a dash through the silken curtains, ran into the hall, just
as Lord Hilton was leaving the door-step, and called him back.
He followed her into the boudoir, telling her the reason of his visit as
he went.
This inflamed her anew, and she turned upon him savagely, but with some
attempt at self-restraint.
"You wished to see Caroline? the ingrate! the viper! the raven with a
nightingale's voice! You wish to see her? Why? This is singular. I
thought she was a stranger to you. No! Then, where did you meet?"
"I have seen the young lady frequently in Italy. Will you please to have
her informed that I am here?"
"Informed--I! Well, my lord, this is droll! No such person is in my
house. I could no longer tolerate her. She is gone."
"What! Your daughter?"
"My daughter! Did I ever say that? Ah, I remember--it was after one of
our little suppers, when one gets liberal! But this ingrate was no
daughter of mine, but my protege--something to fasten the heart on, as
one loves a Skye terrier. Her father was a poor man--very poor, almost
degraded, you understand--so, in my unfortunate munificence, I lifted
her out of her poverty, gave her some of my own genius, and took her to
my bosom, as Cleopatra took the asp; and she stung me, just in the same
way, villainous ingrate! This girl has treated me shamefully. I had made
_such_ an engagement for her--such concessions--carriage for herself,
dressing-maid always in attendance, a boudoir for her retirement,
private box, everything that a princess might ask; bills almost made
out, and when I come home, she is gone. Read that note, my lord; it lies
there at your feet. Read it, and tell me if you ever heard of such base
ingratitude."
Lord Hilton took up the crumpled and trodden paper. His eyes eagerly ran
over its contents, and brightened as they read; while Olympia prowled
around her boudoir, like a newly-caged leopardess.
"Read! read!" she said, "and then say if anything so ungrateful ever
lived. No, no, my lord, she is no child of mine. I wash my hands of
her--I wash my hands of her!"
Here Olympia laved her white hands in the air, and went through a
process of dry washing in the heat of her promenade up and down the
room.
"And have you no idea where the young lady has gone?"
"An idea! How should I have ideas? You have read her letter. Well, that
is all."
Lord Hilton folded the note, and softly closed his hand over it.
"Then I will no longer trouble you, madam," he said, holding back the
curtain, while he bowed himself through the entrance.
Olympia watched the crimson curtains close over him, standing, with some
effort at self-control, in the middle of the room. Then she broke into a
fresh paroxysm, shattered a few more ornaments by way of appeasing her
appetite for destruction, and plunged down among her cushions in a fit
of shrieking hysterics that brought the whole household around her.
A knock at the door--another visitor--brought Olympia out of her fit,
and turned her general rage into spite.
"Show them in--show everybody in! If they want to see how I bear it, let
the whole world come!" she cried, spreading her hands abroad.
The man who went to the door obeyed her, and brought in an old woman,
whose anxious, tired face might have won sympathy from a stone. She
entered that glittering room without excitement or any appearance of
curiosity, and when Olympia, in coarse and spiteful irony, bade her sit
down in one of the easy-chairs, she took it quietly.
"There is a young lady staying with you, madam, that I wish to see. I
think she is known by the name of Brown."
"Brown? Brown? There is no such person here. How dare you come troubling
me about her, the ingrate, the asp, the--the--"
"It may be that the young lady may still be called Yates. She bore that
name once."
"Yates? Brown? Brown? Yates? I know nothing about them. Don't go on in
that fashion, questioning; for I won't hear it! Who are you that dares
come here with such names? I do not keep a lodging-house. I am Olympia!"
"But there was a young lady here--the one I wish to see," said the old
woman, with calm persistence.
"Well, and if there was?"
"I have very urgent reasons for wishing to find her."
"Well, perhaps you will, who knows? Needles have been found in haymows,
but I wasn't the person to pick them up, and it strikes me that you
won't be more fortunate."
"But I must see this lady!"
"If you can find her, certainly; but she is not here, and never is
likely to be again--the wretch--the viper!"
"When did she leave here, madam?"
"When--when? What is that to you? Am I come to the pass that I cannot
turn a viper into the street without being questioned by every old tramp
that prowls about? I tell you the creature you call Brown--"
"Caroline Brown," said the old lady, gently.
"Well, the creature you call Caroline Brown, then, has gone from my
house forever. I neither know nor care what has become of her."
The old woman arose, and walked close to Olympia.
"You have forgotten me, Olive Brown. It is a long time since you brought
that helpless little child to me."
Olympia turned white, and, turning, fiercely ordered the servants from
the room.
"Who are you? What are you?" she faltered. "What tempted you to call me
by that name, and they standing by?"
"I am named Yates. Years ago you brought a child for me to care for."
"Oh, it is the child again! I tell you, on my honor, she has left my
house, I do not know where she has gone."
"Are you certain, madam?"
"Certain! Yes--yes. She left my house only this morning."
"Then I will go in search of her. Will this never end?" sighed Hannah
Yates.
"Stop! stop!" cried Olympia. "Promise to say nothing of that name.
Promise!"
"I am only wanting to find the young lady--not to harm any one."
"But it would harm me if you told that. Brown! Brown! Think of Brown for
a stage name! Can't you understand that it would be death to me? Half my
popularity lies in the fact that no one can tell who or what I am. Now,
do be silent, that is a good old soul, if it is only for _her_ sake; for
you know, in spite of the way she has served me, everything I have or
make will go to my child in the end. I am ready to make it worth your
while to be quiet."
Here Olympia took out a portemonnaie and unclasped it. The old woman put
the glittering thing aside with her hand.
"I do not take money," she said. "All I want is to find her. If she is
gone, I must search farther."
Then, with a meek bend of the head, Mrs. Yates left the room and the
house.
* * * * *
Lord Hilton went out of that house, relieved by the denial of Olympia
that Caroline was her daughter, but in other respects cruelly
disappointed. The greatest and most generous wish of his life was to
find the young girl, and atone for the cowardice which had made him
avoid her for a time. He had resolved that the fact that she was
Olympia's child should not prevent him acting this manly part; but when
that degradation was lifted from her by the woman's own words, his heart
was set free from an intolerable weight, and went back to its old love
with a happy rebound. He remained in London some days, spending the time
in vain efforts to learn something of the beautiful fugitive, and then
started back to the neighborhood of Houghton Castle, bitterly
disappointed.
For some distance, after he entered the railroad carriage, Lord Hilton
was alone; but at the junction, where he had formerly met Lady Clara and
her maid, a gentleman and lady entered the carriage, and sat down
opposite him. There was something singular about the lady; her large,
black eyes illumined the whole face with a glow of proud triumph that
seemed to have uplifted her whole being. It was this brilliant seeming
of happiness which at first baffled Lord Hilton; for after the lady had
been seated awhile, she probably began to feel the restraints of a
stranger's presence, for a fit of thoughtful lassitude crept over her,
and her eyelids began to droop.
He remembered the face, now. One night he had seen it at the opera,
leaning against the crimson lining of the box, paler by far than now;
but the beautiful outlines were the same, though that face had been
still and passive, while this was irradiated even in its rest.
Turning his face from the lady, Lord Hilton encountered a face that he
knew in the tall and distinguished-looking man who accompanied her.
"Lord Hope, this is a pleasure," he said, holding out his hand. "The
last I heard of you was in Scotland."
"Yes, we found the shooting good, and staid longer than usual; but I
fancied you were down at the old place."
"And so I was, but these railways send a man from one end of the
universe to another so rapidly that one does not know where to date
from. I have been up to London for a day or two, and am on my way back
again."
Here Lady Hope lifted her slumberous eyelids, and was introduced.
The sweet, alluring smile that we have seen on the face of Rachael Closs
had come back to it now.
"I should almost have known Lord Hilton," she said, "from Lady Clara's
description. She was indeed fortunate in chancing upon you for a
travelling companion."
"I have that great kindness to thank you for, Hilton," said Lord Hope.
"Clara's letters were full of your adventures on the road and at
Houghton. I did not know that you had left the neighborhood, though."
"I think myself more than fortunate," said Hilton, addressing Lady Hope,
"in having the honor of introducing two such ladies to the castle, for I
take it you are going to Houghton."
"Oh, yes, of course; it was impossible to refuse Lady Carset. We shall
be at the castle some time, I am glad to say."
How her magnificent eyes flashed. The very bend of her head was regal,
as she thus announced a triumph she had been toiling for ever since she
had become Lord Hope's wife.
The scorn of that old woman at Houghton, had been the bane of her
existence. Like an interdict of the Pope in olden times, it had kept her
apart from the people of her own rank, as an excommunication would have
done in past ages. But all this was removed. As it would seem by a
miracle, the bitter prejudices of that old lady had given way, and
through the broad doors of Houghton Castle, she was invited to take her
place among the peeresses of the land.
This had brought back the fire and bloom into Lady Hope's life, and when
Lord Hilton leaned out, as he had done with Lady Clara, and exclaimed,
"There is Houghton," a glorious smile broke over her features.