There is something solemn and awe-inspiring in perfect happiness.
How many times in the day did Ida pull up Rupert and gaze into the
distance with vacant, unseeing eyes, pause in the middle of some common
task, look up from the book she was trying to read, to ask herself
whether she was indeed the same girl who had lived her lonely life at
Herondale, or whether she had changed places with some other
personality, with some girl singularly blessed amongst women.
Jessie and Jason, even the bovine William, who was reputed the
stupidest man in the dale, noticed the change in her, noticed the touch
of colour that was so quick to mount to the ivory cheek, the novel
brightness and tenderness in the deep grey eyes, the new note, the low,
sweet tone of happiness in the clear voice. Her father only remained
unobservant of the subtle change, but he was like a mole burrowing
amongst his book and gloating secretly over the box which he concealed
at the approach of footsteps, the opening of a door, and the sound of a
voice in a distant part of the house.
But though the servants remarked the change in their beloved mistress,
they did not guess at its cause; for, by chance rather than design,
none of them had seen Ida and Stafford together. And yet they met
daily. Sometimes Stafford would ride over from Brae Wood and meet her
by the river. There was a hollow there, so deep that it hid not only
themselves but the horses, and here they would sit, hand in hand, or
more often with his arm round her and her small, shapely head with its
soft, but roughened hair, upon his breast. Sometimes he would row
across the lake and they would walk side by side along the bank, and
screened by the trees in which the linnet and the thrush sang the songs
which make a lover's litany; at others--and these were the sweetest
meeting of all, for they came in the soft and stilly night when all
nature was hushed as if under the spell of the one great passion--he
would ride or walk over after dinner, and they would sit in the ruined
archway of the old chapel and talk of their blank past, the magic
present, and the future which was to hold nothing but happiness.
Love grows fast under such conditions, and the love of these two
mortals grew to gigantic proportions, absorbing the lives of both of
them. To Stafford, all the hours that were not spent with this girl of
his heart were so much dreary waste.
To Ida--ah, well, who shall measure the intensity of a girl's first
passion? She only lived in the expectation of seeing him, in his
presence and the whispered words and caresses of his love; and, in his
absence, in the memory of them. For her life meant just this man who
had come and taken the heart from her bosom and enthroned his own in
its place.
They told each other everything. Stafford knew the whole of her life
before they met, all the little details of the daily routine of the
Hall, and her management of the farm; and she learnt from him all that
was going on at the great, splendid palace which in his modesty Sir
Stephen Orme had called the Villa. She liked to nestle against him and
hear the small details of his life, as he liked to hear hers; and she
seemed to know all the visitors at the Villa, and their peculiarities,
as well as if she were personally acquainted with them.
"You ought not to leave them so much, Stafford." she said, with mock
reproof, as they sat one afternoon in the ballow by the river. "Don't
you think they notice your absence and wonder where you are?"
"Shouldn't think so," he replied. "Besides, I don't care if they do.
All my worry is that I can't come to you oftener. Every time I leave
you I count up the hours that must pass before I see you again. But I
expect most, if not all, of the visitors will be off presently. Most of
'em have been there the regulation fortnight; a good many come
backwards and forwards; they're the city men, the money men. My father
is closeted with them for hours every day--that big scheme of his seems
to be coming off satisfactorily. It's a railway to some place in
Africa, and all these fellows--the Griffenbergs, and Beltons, that fat
German baron, Wirsch, and the rest of them, are in it. Heaven knows why
my father wants to worry about it for. I heard one of them say that he
calculated to make a million and a half out of it. As if he weren't
rich enough!"
"A million and a half," she said. "What a large sum it seems. What one
could do with a half, a quarter, a tenth of it!"
"What would you do, dearest?" he asked.
She laughed softly.
"I think that I would first buy you a present. And then I'd have the
Hall repainted. No, I'd get the terrace rails and the portico mended;
and yet, perhaps, it would be better to have the inside of the house
painted and papered. You see, there are so many things I could do with
it, that it's difficult to choose."
"You shall do 'em all," he said, putting his arm round her. "See here,
Ida, I've been thinking about ourselves--"
"Do you ever think of anything else? I don't," she said, half
unconsciously.
--"And I've made up my mind to take the bull by the horns--"
"Is that meant for my father or yours?"
"Both," he replied. "We've been so happy this last fortnight--is it a
fortnight ago since I got you to tell me that you cared for me? Lord!
it seems a year sometimes, and at others it only seems a minute!--that
we haven't cared to think of how we stand; but it can't like this
forever, Ida. You see, I want you--I want you all to myself, for every
hour of the day and night instead of for just the few minutes I've the
good luck to snatch. Directly this affair of my governor's is finished
I shall go to him and tell him I'm the happiest, the luckiest man in
the world; I shall tell him everything exactly how we stand--and ask
him to help us with your father."
Ida sighed and looked grave.
"I know, dearest," he said, answering the look. "But your father has to
be faced some time, and I--Ida, I am impatient. I want you. Now, as I
daresay you have discovered, I am rather an idiot than otherwise, and
the worst man in the world to carry out anything diplomatically; but my
father--" He laughed rather ruefully. "Well, they say he can coax a
concession out of even the Sultan of Turkey; that there is no one who
can resist him; and I know I shall be doing the right thing by telling
him how we stand."
She leant her elbows on her knees and her chin in the palms of her
hands.
"It shall be as you say, my lord and master," she said; "and when you
tell him that you have been so foolish as to fall in love with a little
Miss Nobody, who lives in a ruined tumble-down house, and is as poor
and friendless as a church mouse, do you think he will be
delighted--that the great and all-powerful Sir Stephen Orme will throw
up his hat for joy and consider that you have been very wise?"
"I think when he sees you--What is that?" he broke off.
"That" was a lady riding across the moor behind them. She was mounted
on one of the Orme horses, was habited by Redfern, who had done justice
to her superb and supple figure, and the sunlight which poured from
between the clouds fully revealed the statuesque beauty of her face.
"I know," said Ida, quietly, as she looked at the graceful horsewoman,
at the lithe, full figure, the cold perfection of the Grecian face.
"That is Miss Falconer: it is, is it not?"
He nodded indifferently.
"And she has seen us," said Ida.
"It doesn't matter in the least," said Stafford. "Why shouldn't she?
But I don't think she has; she did not turn her head as she rode by."
"That is why," said Ida, with her woman's acuteness. "She saw us from
the top of the hill--see, the groom is just riding down."
She was silent a moment or two, watching Maude Falconer as she cantered
away, then she shivered as if with cold.
"What is the matter, dearest?" he asked, drawing her to him. "Why did
you shudder?"
She tried to laugh, but her eyes were grave and almost solemn. "I don't
know. It was as if someone had walked over my grave; as if I felt the
presentiment of some coming evil. I never felt like it before--Yes: she
is very beautiful, Stafford. She is like a picture, a statue--no, that
is not fair; for no picture had ever such magnificent hair, no statue
was ever so full of life and--Oh, I want a word--power. Yes; she is
like a tigress--a tigress asleep and in a good temper just for the
present; but--"
Stafford laughed, the strong and healthy man's laugh of good-natured
tolerance for the fancies of the woman he loves.
"My dear Ida, I assure you Miss Falconer is quite an ordinary young
woman with nothing mysterious or uncanny about her. And if she has seen
us, I am rather glad. I--well, I want to take you by the hand and
exclaim aloud to the whole world: 'Behold the treasure I have found!
Look upon her--but shade your eyes lest her beauty dazzle you--and
worship at her feet.' Only a day or two more and I'll tell my father
and have him on our side."
She made a gesture of consent.
"It shall be as you will," she murmured again. "But go now, dearest; I
shall have to ride fast to reach home in time to give my father his
tea."
Maude Falconer cantered easily until she had turned the corner of the
hill and was out of sight of Stafford and Ida, then she pulled up the
high-bred horse who fretted under her steel-like hands and tossed the
foam from his champing lips, pulled up and looked straight before her,
while the colour came and went on her smooth cheek; a sombre fire
gleamed in the usually coldly calm eyes, and her bosom heaved under the
perfect moulding of the riding-habit. She sat and looked before her for
a moment or two as if she were battling with an emotion which
threatened to master her and to find expression in some violent
outburst; but she conquered, and presently rode on to the Villa; and
half an hour later Stafford, coming up the steps, found her lying back
in her favourite chair with a cup of tea in her hand.
"You are just in time," she said, looking up at him, and he looked back
at her rather vacantly; for Ida had been in his arms too recently, for
his mind, his whole being, to be sufficiently clear of her to permit
him to take any interest in anything else "for tea," she said. "Here it
comes. Shall I pour it out for you? Have you been riding far?"
"Not very far," he said. "You have been riding, too. Is it a wonder we
did not meet."
"Yes," she assented, languidly. "I met no one, saw no one, while I was
out. Here comes your shadow," she added, as Tiny, having heard his
beloved master's voice, came helter-skelter, head over heels, and leapt
on Stafford's lap. "How fond he is of you."
Stafford nodded.
"Yes; I'm jolly glad no one answered the advertisement for its owner."
She bent over and stroked the terrier, who always seemed uneasy under
her caress, and her hand touched Stafford's. She glanced at him as it
did so, but the white hand so soft and warm might have been a piece of
senseless wood for all its effect upon him whose soul was still
thrilling with Ida Heron's touch; and with a tightening of the lips,
she took her hand away and leant back, but her eyes still clung to him,
as, all unconscious, he bent over the dog.
At that moment a carriage drove up, and Mr. Falconer alighted. He came
up the steps, his heavy face grave and yet alert; and his keen eyes
glanced at the pair as they sat side by side. Stafford looked up and
nodded.
"Glad to see you back, Mr. Falconer," he said, pleasantly. "Stands
London where it did?"
"Pretty much so, yes," responded Mr. Falconer, grimly. "Yes, plenty of
other thing change, have their day and cease to be, but the little
village keeps its end up and sees things--and men--come and go, flare
up, flicker and fizzle out. No, thanks; I'll have some tea in my room."
"And like a dutiful daughter, I will go and pour it out for him," said
Maude.
She rose--Tiny rose also, and barked at her--followed her father to his
room and stood watching him as he took off his frock-coat--he had no
valet--and slowly put on a loose jacket.
"Well?" she said, at last.
He sank into a chair and looked up at her with a sardonic smile on his
face.
"Yes, I'm back," he said. "I hurried back because Sir Stephen is going
to sign the articles to-night, going to bring the thing to a
conclusion."
She nodded, her eyes fixed on his hawk-like ones with a calm but keen
watchfulness.
"And you? Have you--"
He leant forward, and held out one claw-like hand, open.
"Yes, I've got him fast and tight." His hand closed, and his eyes shot
a swift, lurid gleam from under their half-lowered lids. "I've got him
as in a vice; I've only to turn the screw and--I squeeze him as flat
and dry as a lemon." She drew a long breath of satisfaction, of relief.
"You are clever!" she said. "And in one fortnight."
He smiled grimly.
"Yes; it is sharp work; and it has taken some doing--and some money.
But I've worked it. Black Steve--I mean Sir Stephen Orme, the great Sir
Stephen--is under my thumb. To-night, the night of his triumph, I am
going to crack him like an egg."
"You will ruin him?" she said.
"That is it," he said, with a nod. "I shall ruin him!"
"Is there no escape?" she asked in a low voice.
"None," he replied, grimly. "I tell you that nothing can save him."
"Excepting one thing," she said in so low a voice that it sounded as if
she were speaking to herself.
"Eh?" he said, as if he had not caught the words. "What is it you mean:
what can save him, what is this one thing?"
His heavy brows came done, and he frowned at her.
She raised her eyes, cold and glittering like steel, and met his frown
unflinchingly.
"The marriage of his son Stafford with your daughter," she said,
slowly, calmly.