‘There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my love, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate.’
To-day the sun is out, and all the walks at the Cottage are glittering
in its rays. Sparks like diamonds come from the small white stones in
the gravel, and the grassy edges close to them—clean shaven by Denis,
who is down again on a penitential visit to his wife—are sweet and
fresh, and suggestive of a desire to make to-day’s work a work again for
to-morrow, so quickly the spring blades grow and prosper.
Wyndham, as he walks from the station to this pretty spot, takes great
note of Nature. Lately the loveliness—the charm of it!—the desire that
grows in the heart for it, has come to him, has sunk into his soul. As
he goes life seems everywhere, and with it such calm!... And here in
this old home, what a place it is! A veritable treasury of old-world
delights—
‘Dewy pastures, dewy trees,
Softer than sleep—all things in order stored,
A haunt of ancient peace.’
As he walks from the gate to the Cottage, a slim figure darting sideways
brings him to a standstill. After her bounds a huge dog. Wyndham
restrains the cry upon his lips that would have called the dog to him,
and, standing still, watches the pretty pair.
He has come down to-day with the intention, avowed and open to his
heart, of asking this girl to marry him. That the deed will mean ruin to
him socially he knows, but he has faced the idea. That she will probably
accept him seems clear, but that it will not be for love seems even
clearer. She has always treated him as one who had given her a helping
hand out of her Slough of Despond, but no more.
Many days have led to his decision of to-day, and many thoughts, and
many sleepless nights. But he has conquered all fears save that supreme
one that she does not love him.
This marriage, if he can persuade her to it, will offend his uncle, Lord
Shangarry. Not a farthing will that old Irish aristocrat leave him if he
knows he has wedded himself to a girl outside his own world—a mere waif
and stray, disreputable, as many would call her.
Disreputable!
It was when this thought of what his friends’ view of his marriage would
be first came to him, and with it a mad longing to seize the throats of
those hideous scandalmongers, that Wyndham knew that he loved the girl
he had saved and protected—and most honourably loved.
And to-day—well, he has come down to ask her to marry him. Shangarry’s
money may go, and all things else that the old lord can keep from him;
the title will still be his—and hers; and with his profession, and the
talent that they say is his, and the money left him by his dead
mother—oh, if she had lived and seen Ella!—he may still be able to keep
up the old name, if not in its old splendour, at all events with a sort
of decency.
Ella is now running towards him, as he stands in the shelter of the
rhododendrons, the dog running after her, jumping about her, with soft
velvety paws and a wagging tail. Suddenly he springs upon her and
threatens the daintiness of her frock.
‘Down now! Down now! Down!’ cries she, laughing. She catches the
handsome brute round the neck, and looks into his eyes. “Does he love
his own missis, then? Then down! It is really down now, sir. Not another
jump. See’—glancing ruefully at her pretty white serge dress—‘the stains
you have made here already.’
How soft, how delicate is her voice, how full of affection for the dog!
Surely, ‘There’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple.’
Wyndham comes forward very casually from amongst the bushes.
‘Oh—you!’ cries she, colouring delightfully, but showing no
embarrassment—he would have liked a little embarrassment. He tells
himself that the want of it quite proves his theory that she regards him
merely as a good friend—no more.
‘Yes; I have run down for an hour or so. You’—looking round him—‘have
been quite a good fairy to my flowers, I see.’
‘Oh, your flowers!’ says she gaily, yet shyly too. Her air is of the
happiest. She has, indeed, been a different creature since Wyndham had
assured her a few months ago of Moore’s actual arrival in Australia.
‘Why, they are mine now, aren’t they? You have given them to me with
this.’ She threw out her arms in a little appropriative way towards the
garden.
‘In a way—yes.’ He pauses. Passion is rising within him. ‘Come in,’ says
he abruptly. ‘There is something I must say to you.’
The pretty drawing-room is bright with flowers, and there is a certain
air of daintiness—a charm—about the whole place that tells of the
refinement of its owner. It is not Miss Manning who has given this
delicate cosiness to it—Miss Manning, good soul, who is now in the
kitchen, very proud in the fond belief that she is helping Mrs. Denis to
make marmalade. No! In every cluster of early roses, in every bunch of
sweet-smelling daffodils, in the pushing of the chairs here, and the
screens there, Wyndham can see the touch of Ella’s hand.
In the far-off window, on a little table, stands the dressing-case that
he had sent her after his interview with Moore. It is open, and some of
the contents—what remains of them—with their silver tops, are shining in
the rays of the sun. The girl’s glance catches them, and all at once the
merry touch upon her lips dies away, and gloom settles on her brow. The
lost bottles, the battered and dismantled case, seem to Wyndham but the
broken links of a broken life, and a thrill of pity urges him to instant
speech.
‘Don’t look like that, Ella.’ And then, with a burst of passion and
grief: ‘My darling, what does it matter?’ And then again, almost without
a stop, ‘Ella, will you marry me?’
For a moment she looks at him as if not understanding. Then a most
wonderful light springs into her eyes. But when he would go to her and
take her in his arms, she puts out hers, and almost imperiously forbids
him.
‘No,’ says she clearly, if a little wildly perhaps.
‘But why—why? Oh, this is nonsense! You know—you must have known for a
long time—that I love you.’
‘I did not know,’ says she faintly. ‘I—even now it seems impossible.
Don’t!’ as he makes a movement towards her. ‘Don’t misunderstand me. I
know now’—her voice breaking a little—‘that it might have been. But what
is impossible’—her young voice growing rounder, fuller, and unutterably
wretched—‘is that I should marry you.’
‘You think because——’
But she sweeps his words aside.
‘It is useless,’ says she, with a strength strange in one so few miles
advanced upon life’s roadway, until one remembers how sad and eventful
those few miles she has trodden have been—how full of miserable
knowledge, how full of the cruel lesson—how to bear! ‘I am nobody, less
than nobody. And you—are somebody. Do you think I would consent to ruin
your life—the life of the only one who has—who has ever stood my
friend?’
‘This gratitude is absurd!’ he breaks in eagerly. ‘What have I done for
you? Let you the Cottage at a fair rental!’
‘Ah, no!’ There is irrepressible sadness in her air. She struggles with
herself, holding her hands against her eyes for a little while—pressing
them hard, as if to keep down her emotion. ‘I won’t—I can’t go into it,’
says she brokenly. ‘But when I forget—Mr. Wyndham’—she turns upon him
passionately—‘never ask me that question again. Nothing on earth would
induce me to link my name with yours.’ She pauses, and a hot blush
covers her face. ‘My name!’—she repeats her words with determination,
though he can see how the determination hurts her—‘I have no name.’
‘That is all the more reason why you should take mine,’ breaks he in
hotly.
‘And so destroy it. I shall not, indeed,’ says the girl firmly. Her
firmness is costing her a good deal. It causes Wyndham absolute physical
suffering to see the pallor of her face, the trembling of her slight
form. But that he can shake her decision seems improbable. Something in
her face takes him back to that terrible hour in which he first saw her,
when with pale face and undaunted spirit she accepted the chance of
death. Her voice, even in this hour of renunciation of all that she
holds dearest, rings clear. ‘Do you think I would requite all your
kindness to me by being the cause of your disinheritance by your uncle?
Do you think Lord Shangarry would ever forgive your marriage with a
woman of whom no one knows anything—not even her parentage?’
‘I am willing to risk all that.’
‘But I’—slowly—‘am not.’
‘Ella, if you loved me——’
‘Ah!’ A cry breaks from her, a cry that betrays her secret, and
convinces him of her love for him. It is full of exquisite pain, and
seems to wound her. Is it not because she loves him that—— ‘Well, then,’
says she miserably, ‘say I do not. Think I do not.’
‘I will not think it,’ cries he vehemently, ‘until you say it. Ella, my
beloved, what has this old man’s wealth to do with you or me? What has
the world to do with us? Come now, look into it with me. Here are you,
and here am I, and what else is there in all the wide world for us two,
Ella?’ And now he breaks into earnest, most manly entreaties, and wooes
her with all his soul, and at last—as a true lover should—upon his
knees.
But she resists him, pushing his clasping hands away.
‘I will not! I will not!’ repeats she steadfastly.
‘Oh, you are cold; you do not care,’ cries he suddenly.
He springs to his feet, angry, yet filled with an admiration for her
that has, if not increased his love, made it more open to him. A strong
man himself, and hard to move, he can see the splendid strength of this
poor girl, who, because of her love for him, refuses his love for her.
His sudden movement has upset the small table on which the dressing-case
is standing, and brings it heavily to the ground.
There is a crash, a breaking asunder of the sides of the case, and here
on the carpet before their astonished gaze lies a small sheaf of letters
and a faded photograph. Where had they come from? Had there been a
secret drawer? Wyndham, stooping, picks them up. A name catches his eye.
Why, this thing, surely, is a certificate of marriage!
* * * * *
As he reads, hurriedly, breathlessly, going from one letter to another
and back again, from the few pages of a small disconnected diary to the
marriage certificate in his other hand, his face grows slowly white as
death.
‘Oh, what is it?’ cries Ella at last.
‘Give me time.’ His tone is full of ill-repressed agitation.
Again he reads.
The girl drops on her knees beside him, her face no less white than his.
What does it all mean? What secret do these old letters hold? The
photograph is lying still upon the floor, and her eyes, riveting
themselves upon it, feel at once as though they were looking at
someone—someone remembered—loved! She stares more eagerly. Surely it
reminds her, too, of ... of—she leans closer over it—of someone feared
and hated! Oh! how could that gentle face be feared—or hated—and yet,
was there not someone, who——
‘Oh, I know it!’ cries she suddenly, violently. She springs to her feet
as if stung, and turns a ghastly face on Wyndham. ‘Look at it!’ cries
she, gasping, pointing to the photograph at her feet. ‘It is like your
aunt, Mrs. Prior.’
‘Like your aunt!’ says Wyndham slowly, emphatically. The hand with the
letters in it has dropped to his side, but he is holding those old
documents as if in a vice.
‘Mine—Mrs. Prior—oh no! oh no!’ says Ella, making a gesture of fear and
horror.
‘Yes, yours and mine, Ella!’ There is passionate delight and triumph in
his whole air. ‘A moment ago you said you had no name; now—now,’
striking the papers in his hand, ‘you have one! These are genuine, I
swear they are, and they prove you to be the grand-daughter of Sir John
Burke, and of—strangest of all things—the Professor.’
‘I—how can I understand? What is it?’ asks she faintly.
He explains it to her, and it is, indeed, all that he has said. The
breaking up of that queer old dressing-case, that afterwards Mrs. Prior
had most unwillingly to admit belonged to Ella’s mother—the lost Eleanor
Burke—brought all things to a conclusion. There was the diary in it that
proved the writer to be Eleanor Burke beyond all doubt, and the heiress
of her dead father, Sir John; and there was the marriage certificate
that proved poor Eleanor’s marriage to as big a scamp as could be found
in Europe, which is saying a good deal; and there were many other
letters besides, to show that the scamp, who called himself Haynes to
evade the law (and his father), was the son of Professor Hennessy. That
Ella had forgotten the other name her poor mother bore, ‘Haynes,’ and
had let her identity be lost in the word ‘Moore,’ had, of course, much
to do with the unhappy mystery that had so long surrounded her. After
Sir John’s death—that left Eleanor, his eldest girl, his heir, or
failing her, her children—much search had been made for Eleanor under
the name of Haynes, but naturally without avail. Anyway, the whole thing
had gradually sunk out of sight; Eleanor was accepted as dead, and her
fortune lapsing to Mrs. Prior, she reigned in her stead.
* * * * *
‘You see how it is,’ says Wyndham, who from a rather prematurely old,
self-contained man has developed into an ordinary person, full of
enthusiasm. ‘You are now Miss Hennessy—a hideous name, I allow. But you
were,’ with a flick of humour, ‘so very anxious for a name of any sort,
that perhaps you will forgive the ugliness. And you are heir to a good
deal of money on both sides. Mrs. Prior will have to hand out a
considerable amount of her capital, and as for me ... I feel nothing
less than a defrauder. You know your grandfather, the Professor, left me
the bulk of his fortune—not knowing you were so much as in the world at
the time he made his will. Of course, that, too—— Are you listening,
Ella?’
The fact that the girl is not listening to him has evoked this remark.
Whatever ‘gray grief’ had to do with her a few minutes ago, before the
breaking of her mother’s dressing-case, it has nothing to do with her
now. All the splendour of youth has come back to her face, and all the
happiness; yet still it is quite plain to him that her mind is not set
on the money that fate has cast upon her path, or on the high chances of
gaining a place in society, but on——
‘No,’ says she slowly, simply, and with a touch of trouble, as if
bringing her mind with difficulty back to something far away.
‘You must give me your attention for a moment,’ says he sharply. Ever
since he discovered that she was not only the possessor of a very good
name, in spite of its ugliness, but also the heiress of a very
considerable sum of money, all passion has died out of his tone. If he
thought, however, by this to deceive her with regard to his honest
feeling for her, he is entirely mistaken. ‘There are things to which you
will have to listen—to which you ought to wish to listen. And if’—with a
frown—‘you will not think of your good fortune, of what will you think?’
There is a long silence. And then there is a little rush towards him,
and two arms are flung round his neck.
‘I am thinking,’ cries she softly, clinging to him, ‘that now I can
marry you.’
* * * * *
Heavenly moments on this side of the sky are few and far between. It is
Ella, so strangely unlike a woman, who breaks into the delicious
silence.
‘That night! I wish now——’
‘Wish nothing, so far as that is concerned. That night I saw you first
gave you to me.’
‘But——’
‘That sounds like fright,’ interrupts he, laughing. ‘But you are not
easily frightened, are you? That night—you see, I insist upon going back
to it’—catching her hands and drawing her to him—‘no, you shall not be
ashamed of it. That night in which we both met for the first time you
were not frightened. You walked towards death without a qualm.’
‘Ah, I was too wretched then to be frightened of anything!’ says she.
She looks at him, a smile parts her lips, and slowly, slowly she leans
towards him until her cheek is resting against his.
‘I should be frightened now,’ says she softly, tenderly.
His arms close round her. He clasps her to his heart.