HER LOVE STORY
That night Nora dreamed again--the same dream. It was more real even
than before. She was lying in bed--she knew she was in bed, and her
father came in at the door. In some strange fashion she had expected
him; it was not that she heard him moving along the passage, yet,
somehow, she knew that he was there, that he was coming. And, before
he actually appeared, she knew that he was in great trouble; when he
opened the door, so noiselessly, and without a sound came in, and
closed the door again, also without a sound, she knew it even better
than before, and his trouble communicated itself to her. In such
trouble was he that he was even afraid of her. He remained close to
the door, looking timidly towards her as she lay in bed, not daring to
approach. So moved was she by his strange timidity that she sat up,
and held out her arms to him, calling--
"Father!" She was sure she called, because she heard her own voice
quite clearly; not as it mostly is in dreams, when one hears nothing.
But yet he came no closer. Then she saw that he was crying. She called
to him again, more eagerly. Then he went, step by step, timidly
towards her; until she had her arms about him, and whispered, "Father,
tell me what it is that troubles you." And he tried to tell her, but
he could not; he was speechless, and to him his speechlessness was
agony. If he only could speak she felt that all might be well with
him--and with her; but he was tongue-tied. She tried to think of what
it could be that he wished to say to her, and to prompt him;
whispering into his ear first this, then that; but it was plain that
none of her hints had anything to do with what was in his mind, though
once she thought that she might not be far off. When she whispered,
"Is it about what I am to do in the future?" his face changed; a sort
of convulsion passed all over him; he drew himself away from her, and
stood up, raising his arms, seeming to make a frenzied effort to
achieve articulation; it even seemed that speech had come to him at
last, when, just as words were already almost issuing from his lips,
he vanished, and she was alone in the darkness.
Not the least strange part of it was that she was wide awake, having
no consciousness of being roused out of sleep; she was sitting up in
bed, the tears were streaming down her cheeks, her arms were held out,
with about them the oddest feeling of somebody having just been in
them. Indeed for a moment or two she could not believe that there was
not some one in them still. When she did realize that they were empty
she threw herself face downwards in the bed, crying as if her heart
would break, because of her father's woe.
Donald Lindsay was buried on the Thursday--exactly a week after he had
been stricken with his death. On the Tuesday and Wednesday she had
variations of the same dream, and on the Thursday, the day of the
funeral, it was so terrible a dream that the agony of it remained with
her until the morning. For a long time afterwards some form of that
dream would come to her at intervals. She said nothing of it to any
one, though there was a moment when she was on the point of speaking
of it to Elaine Harding; but she had it sometimes even in her waking
thoughts. The course of events induced in her a kind of dormant
conviction not only that the dream was sent to her for some special
purpose, and that it had a meaning; but, also, that some day both the
purpose and the meaning would be made clear. She knew that it is
written that, of old, God spake to men in dreams; she believed it to
be possible that, in a dream, God might speak to her. The dream always
ended at the same point: just as her father, after an agonizing
effort, seemed to be about to speak. She fancied that, some night, it
might go on further, and that he might speak to her in his dream, and
that with his speaking the purpose and the meaning of it all would be
discovered.
On the morning of the funeral, among the other letters, Mrs. Steele,
the housekeeper, called her attention to one in particular. No doubt
she was aware that, during the last few days, either letters had been
left unopened, or the task of opening them relegated to Elaine
Harding, who communicated their contents if she pleased.
"Miss Nora," she said, "this is a letter from Mr. Spencer."
The girl caught eagerly at it; it was the first sign of eagerness she
had lately shown. So soon as Mrs. Steele had gone she opened it. It
was from her lover, Robert Spencer; a long letter, on three closely
written sheets of foreign note-paper. He was in Sicily; had sent her a
gossipy narrative of his wanderings among its ancient places, and
among its scenes of beauty. It was full of love, and life, and high
spirits; the sort of letter which makes a girl's heart beat happily;
which she cherishes amid her most precious possessions. He told her
how he wished that she was with him; that she at least was close at
hand, that they might see and enjoy, together, what was so much worth
seeing, and enjoying. In mischievous mood he added that when the great
day came, on which the sun would rise in their sky for ever, and they
were married, he humbly ventured to suggest that part of their
honeymoon might be spent where he was then--"that would be to invest
Taormina, which is already nearly all halos, with another, the
brightest and the best."
To a girl's thinking there could be no pleasanter reading than such a
letter; she could desire nothing better of the future than that its
savour might remain unchanged, and that, throughout the years which
were to come, the love of which it was a sign might walk always by her
side.
So great was its power that, for a moment, it charmed her to
forgetfulness. She saw in it her lover's face, and looked into his
eyes; his voice spoke to her from the pages, and sounded sweetly in
her ears. When he wrote of honeymooning the blood came to her cheeks;
her lips were parted by a smile; her heart seemed speaking unto his.
Even when she remembered, and recalled what day it was, and what
shortly was about to happen, the light did not quite fade from her
eyes, and the world was not all darkness. The match had been one of
the few things respecting which her father had expressed to her his
audible satisfaction. It was tacitly understood that the marriage was
to take place during the current year. Both lovers were young--Robert
Spencer had only just turned twenty-four. The only thing which could
be said against him was his lack of means. He had done well both at
school and at the university. Without being the least bit of a prig,
he was exempt from those vices which the facile standard of the world
in which he lived associates with youth. He was tall and strong and
handsome; easy-mannered, more than is apt to be the case with the
young Englishman of twenty-four; of fluent speech--he had been, in his
time, one of the stars of the Union; there was no apparent reason why
he should not make for himself, among the men of his own generation, a
great name for good. The chief obstacle with which he would have to
contend might be, as has been said, the eternal question of pence.
He was the fourth, and youngest, son of the Earl of Mountdennis.
Everybody knows that his lordship had more children than money; four
sons and five daughters is a liberal allowance for any man; the Earl
and the Countess have that number living, and three of their children
are dead. At the period of which we are writing all the five daughters
were married, though by no means, from their mother's point of view,
all satisfactorily married. The Countess never attempted to conceal
the fact that only the first and third had done really well for
themselves. According to the same authority, the boys had not done all
that they might have done; the heir, Lord Cookham, in particular,
had been a bitter disappointment, having been--his mother called
it--wicked enough to marry a girl who had no money, and, practically,
no family, merely because he loved her. He had been perfectly well
aware that, in his case, marriage must mean money; it had been drummed
into his ears from his earliest childhood;--family was of no
consequence; he had family enough of his own. The one thing wanted was
money--sacks full. And the thing was made more cruel by the fact that
he might have had any amount of money, had he chosen. He might have
had an English girl with a hundred thousand a year, to say nothing of
several Americans with a great deal more; instead of which he married
a young woman whom he met, as the Countess put it, at "some horrid
foreign place," whose only qualification was that she was generally
admitted, by some excellent judges, to be delightful. What, as the
Countess pungently inquired, was the use of being delightful if she
and her husband had not enough money between them to pay off the
family debts, to say nothing of keeping up the family seats. And then
they actually started by having three children in less than six
years--all girls. It was too perfectly ridiculously absurd!
Montagu, the second son, had refused to marry at all, so his mother
said; though it was not known that any girls had ever actually asked
him. It was understood that he had made money in Africa, though he
showed not the slightest inclination to squander it among his
relatives; he had even declined to what his mother termed "lend" her
five thousand pounds to be spent on "doing up" Holtye, which was the
seat the Earl and the Countess principally favoured. Such conduct, she
declared, was inhuman, but "so like Montagu." Arthur, the third son,
had done best for himself from at least a financial point of view. He
had married Mrs. Parkes-Peters, the widow of the contractor who left
three millions. It was true that nasty things had been said of some of
his most successful contracts; but, after all, the man was dead. It
was also true that no one knew who, or what, his widow was before he
married her; it was, if possible, even more true that she was older
than her second husband. She herself admitted that she was his senior
by ten years--the world said it ought to be twenty. But as she proved
to be an ideal wife from the point of view of the man who marries for
money, such trifles could hardly be said to count. Their friends
asserted that she gave him a thousand pounds every time he kissed
her--really no husband could want more.
And yet both his parents were aware that one need not be hypercritical
to be able to see objections even against Arthur's wife. There
remained, therefore, to them but one hope--their fourth son, Robert.
Theirs must have been a sanguine temperament--when one knew them one
felt as if they had only one between them--because, after all their
disappointments, they still built on him a castle in Spain, of their
own design. It really seemed as if that castle was to be actually
reared. Robert had set his affections on Miss Lindsay, and that
without the least prompting from either of them; as they knew, from
painful experience, in such cases one sometimes had to do such a lot
of prompting. They frankly admitted that, looking at the matter as a
whole, he could hardly have been expected to do better--to begin with.
Cloverlea was quite a nice place, and, as it were, next door to
Holtye; there were only nine miles between them. It was kept up in
excellent style; the Earl, who was supposed to know something about
such things, assured his wife that it probably cost Donald Lindsay at
least ten thousand a-year. It was true that its owner was by way of
being a curiosity; but then his eccentricities--if they could be
called eccentricities--were not of a kind which would be likely to
injure his daughter. And she was his only child. In her capacity of
young woman nothing whatever could be urged against her; the Earl and
Countess were entirely at one in agreeing with Robert that, in that
respect, she was all that there was of the most charming. Obviously,
when her father died, she would be more than comfortably off. The only
thing to be considered was, what would she have until he died--in case
she took unto herself a husband. On this point, also, everything was
as it should be.
The Earl rode over to Cloverlea one day, when its master happened to
be at home, and had a talk with him--than which nothing could be more
satisfactory. Lindsay told his visitor, in that plain outspoken way of
his, that he was satisfied with the result of inquiries he had been
making about the Hon. Robert, and that, in consequence, five thousand
a year would be settled on Nora if he married her. Besides this, he
would present her, as a wedding gift, with a suitable house in town,
and all the furniture. He added, with one of his rare, grim smiles,
which the earl interpreted in a fashion of his own, that it was
possible that one day she would be much richer than people thought.
The Earl told the Countess, on his return to Holtye, that he should
not be surprised if the man was a millionaire. Anyhow his offer was
most generous; especially as Robert was the youngest of nine, and had,
literally, nothing but himself and his family to bring his wife. The
Countess wondered vaguely if, on the strength of the matrimonial
alliance which was to unite the two families, Mr. Lindsay might not be
induced to advance what she described as "something decent" in order
that something might be done to Holtye, which was falling to pieces,
and where the furniture was in a scandalous condition. The Earl, who
knew that his wife had been searching for years for some one who would
play the part of fairy prince towards their family domain, merely
remarked that it would be time enough to think of all that kind of
thing when the pair were married.
Nora had not been actually informed of the arrangements which had been
made for the commercial success of her love-match, but she knew quite
well that it never would have entered the domain of practical politics
if they had not been satisfactory. Robert was perfectly frank upon the
point; he was frank with her about everything; it was his nature to be
frank. He told her that he had not a shilling of his own, and never
had.
"My aunt paid for me at Eton, and, afterwards, at the 'Varsity; so far
as I know, she's paid for me ever since I was born; I believe she's
even bought my clothes. I don't know why, because we're not a bit in
sympathy; though she's a dear, on lines of her own, which are
peculiar. She's only just on speaking terms with my mother, who's her
own sister; and the things she says of my father are dreadful--he's
really the most inoffensive of men. She has never lived in England
since I can remember; she says she can't afford it. The truth is,
she's never happy except in pursuit of her health; she passes from one
'cure' place to another, in possession of a number of complaints which
nobody understands, but which suit her constitution admirably. She has
about two thousand a year of her own, and spends most of it on
doctors; though she declares, to their faces, that she never met one
yet who knew what he is talking about. Out of what is left after the
doctors are paid she is at present allowing me three hundred pounds a
year, which is very good of her; especially considering two facts, the
one being that I really have no claim on her at all, and the other
that the three hundred is sometimes nearly four; for instance, last
year she gave me fifty pounds as a birthday present, and twenty-five
as a Christmas-box. So you see that I really am a pauper, living upon
charity, and that I never ought to have dared to love you at all; only
I couldn't help it--who could?"
She had laughed at him.
"Lots of people. Of course, it's very sad that you should be so poor;
but I dare say, if we are careful, we can manage; and you know there
is such a thing as love in a cottage--would the prospect of such a
fate as that seem to you so very frightful?"
"Frightful! I wouldn't mind it a bit; would you?"
"I dare say I could put up with it for a time."
"It should only be for a time, I promise you. I'm handicapped by being
who I am, but I don't think I'm an utter fool. I've always taken it
for granted that I should have to make my own way, and, to the best of
my ability, I've provided myself with the necessary tools; I believe
that I could make my own way in the world as well as another man. You
have only to say the word, and I'll make it first and woo you
afterwards."
"Thank you; I'm content with things as they are; I'm sorry you're
not."
This was said with a twinkle in her eyes which was meant to provoke
him to warmth, and it did.
"Nora! do you wish me to--shake you?"
"I don't mind."
He did do something to her; but she was not shaken.