BY SPECIAL LICENCE.
After that interview with John Hammond all the arrangements for the
marriage were planned by Lady Maulevrier with a calm and business-like
capacity which seemed extraordinary in one so frail and helpless. For a
little while after Hammond left her she remained lost in a reverie,
deeply affected by the speech and manner of her granddaughter's lover,
as he gave her that first kiss of duty and affection, the affection of
one who in that act declared the allegiance of a close and holy bond.
Yes, she told herself, this marriage, humble as it might be, was
altogether satisfactory. Her own feeling towards the man of her
granddaughter's choice was one of instinctive affection. Her heart had
yearned to him from the beginning of their acquaintance; but she had
schooled herself to hide all indications of her liking for him, she had
made every effort to keep him at a distance, deeming his very merits a
source of danger in a household where there were two fresh
impressionable girls.
And despite all her caution and care he had succeeded in winning one of
those girls: and she was glad, very glad, that he had so succeeded in
baffling her prudence. And now it was agreeable to discover that he was
not quite such a pauper as she had supposed him to be.
Her heart felt lighter than it had been for some time when she set about
planning the wedding.
The first step in the business was to send for James Steadman. He came
immediately, grave and quiet as of old, and stood with his serious eyes
bent upon the face of his mistress, awaiting her instructions.
'Lady Mary is going to be married to Mr. Hammond, by special licence, in
this room, to-morrow afternoon, if it can be managed so soon,' said Lady
Maulevrier.
'I am very glad to hear it, my lady,' answered Steadman, without the
faintest indication of surprise.
'Why are you so--particularly glad?' asked his mistress, looking at him
sharply.
'Because Lady Mary's presence in this house is a source of danger
to--your arrangements. She is very energetic and enterprising--very
shrewd--and--well, she is a woman--so I suppose there can be no harm in
saying she is somewhat inquisitive. Things will be much safer here when
Lady Mary is gone!'
'But she will not be gone--she is not going away--except for a very
brief honeymoon. I cannot possibly do without her. She has become
necessary to my life, Steadman; and there is so little left of that life
now, that there is no need for me to sacrifice the last gleams of
sunshine. The girl is very sweet, and loving, and true. I was not half
fond enough of her in the past; but she has made herself very dear to me
of late. There are many things in this life, Steadman, which we only
find out too late.'
'But, surely, my lady, Lady Mary will leave Fellside to go to a home of
her own after her marriage.'
'No, I tell you, Steadman,' his mistress answered, with a touch of
impatience; 'Lady Mary and her husband will make this house their home
so long as I am here. It will not be long.'
'God grant it may be very long before you cease to be mistress here,'
answered Steadman, with real feeling; and then in a lower tone he went
on: 'Pardon me, my lady, for the suggestion, but do you think it wise to
have Mr. Hammond here as a resident?'
'Why should it not be wise? Mr. Hammond is a gentleman.'
'True, my lady; but any accident, such as that which brought Lady Mary
into the old garden----'
'No such accident need occur--it must not occur, Steadman,' exclaimed
Lady Maulevrier, with kindling eyes. She who had so long ruled supreme
was not inclined to have any desire of hers questioned. 'There must have
been gross carelessness that day--carelessness on your part, or that
stable door would never have been left open. The key ought to have been
in your possession. It ought not to have been in the power of the
stableman to open that door. As to Mr. Hammond's presence at Fellside, I
cannot see any danger--any reason why harm should come of it, more than
of Lord Maulevrier's presence here in the past.'
'The two gentlemen are so different, my lady,' said Steadman, with a
gloomy brow. 'His lordship is so light-hearted and careless, his mind
taken up with his horses, guns, dogs, fishing, shooting, and all kinds
of sport. He is not a gentleman to take much notice of anything out of
his own line. But this Mr. Hammond is different--a very thoughtful
gentleman, an inquiring mind, as one would say.'
'Steadman, you are getting cowardly in your old age. The danger--such a
risk as you hint at, must be growing less and less every day. After
forty years of security----'
'Security' echoed Steadman, with a monosyllabic laugh which expressed
intense bitterness. 'Say forty years during which I have felt myself
upon the edge of a precipice every day and every hour. Security! But
perhaps you are right, my lady, I am growing old and nervous, a feebler
man than I was a few years ago, feebler in body and mind. Let Mr.
Hammond make his home here, if it pleases your ladyship to have him. So
long as I am well and able to get about there can be no danger of
anything awkward happening.'
Lady Maulevrier looked alarmed.
'But you have no expectation of falling ill, I hope, Steadman; you have
no premonition of any malady?'
'No, my lady, none--except the malady of old age. I feel that I am not
the man I once was, that is all. My brain is getting woolly, and my
sight is clouded now and then. And if I were to fall ill suddenly----'
'Oh, it would be terrible, it would be a dire calamity! There is your
wife, certainly, to look after things, but----'
'My wife would do her best, my lady. She is a faithful creature, but she
is not--yes, without any unkindness I must say that Mrs. Steadman is not
a genius!'
'Oh, Steadman, you must not fail me! I am horror-stricken at the mere
idea,' exclaimed Lady Maulevrier. 'After forty years--great God! it
would be terrible. Lesbia, Mary, Maulevrier! the great, malignant,
babbling world outside these doors. I am hemmed round with perils. For
God's sake preserve your strength. Take care of your health. You are my
strong rock. If you feel that there is anything amiss with you, or that
your strength is failing, consult Mr. Horton--neglect no precaution. The
safety of this house, of the family honour, hangs upon you.'
'Pray do not agitate yourself, my lady,' entreated Steadman. 'I was
wrong to trouble you with my fears. I shall not fail you, be sure.
Although I am getting old, I shall hold out to the end.'
'The end cannot be very far off,' said Lady Maulevrier, gloomily.
'I thought that forty years ago, my lady. But you are right--the end
must be near now. Yes, it must be near. And now, my lady, your orders
about the wedding.'
'It will take place to-morrow, as I told you, in this room. You will go
to the Vicar and ask him to officiate. His two daughters will no doubt
consent to be Lady Mary's bridesmaids. You will make the request in my
name. Perhaps the Vicar will call this afternoon and talk matters over
with me. Lady Mary and her husband will go to Cumberland for a brief
honeymoon--a week at most--and then they will come back to Fellside.
Tell Mrs. Power to prepare the east wing for them. She will make one of
the rooms into a boudoir for Lady Mary; and let everything be as bright
and pretty as good taste can make it. She can telegraph to London for
any new furniture that may be wanted to complete her arrangements. And
now send Lady Mary to me.'
Mary came, fresh from the pine-wood, where she had been walking with her
lover; her lover of to-day, her husband to-morrow. He had told her how
he was to start for York directly after luncheon, and to come back by
the earliest train next day, and how they two were to be married
to-morrow afternoon.
'It is more wonderful than any dream that I ever dreamt.' exclaimed
Mary. 'But how can it be? I have not even a wedding gown.'
'A fig for wedding gowns! It is Mary I am to wed, not her gown. Were you
clad like patient Grisel I should be content. Besides you have no end of
pretty gowns. And you are to be dressed for travelling, remember; for I
am going to carry you off to Lodore directly we are married, and you
will have to clamber up the rocky bed of the waterfall to see the sun
set behind the Borrowdale hills in your wedding gown. It had better be
one of those neat little tailor gowns which become you so well.'
'I will wear whatever you tell me,' answered Mary. 'I shall always dress
to please you, and not the outside world.'
'Will you, my Griselda. Some day you shall be dressed as Grisel was--
"In a cloth of gold that brighte shone,
With a coroune of many a riche stone."
'Yes, you darling, when you are Lord Chancellor; and till that day comes
I will wear tailor gowns, linsey-wolsey, anything you like,' cried Mary,
laughing.
She ran to her grandmother's room, ineffably content, without a thought
of trousseau or finery; but then Mary Haselden was one of those few
young women for whom life is not a question of fashionable raiment.
'Mary, I am going to send you off upon your honeymoon to-morrow
afternoon,' said Lady Maulevrier, smiling at the bright, happy face
which was bent over her. 'Will you come back and nurse a fretful old
woman when the honeymoon is over?'
'The honeymoon will never be over,' answered Mary, joyously. 'Our wedded
life is to be one long honeymoon. But I will come back in a very few
days, and take care of you. I am not going to let you do without me, now
that you have learnt to love me.'
'And will you be content to stay with me when your husband has gone to
London?'
'Yes, but I shall try to prevent his going very often, or staying very
long. I shall try to wind myself into his heart, so that there will be
an aching void there when we are parted.'
Lady Maulevrier proceeded to tell Mary all her arrangements. Three
handsome rooms in the east wing, a bedroom, dressing-room, and boudoir,
were to be made ready for the newly-married couple. Fräulein Müller was
to be dismissed with a retiring pension, in order that Lady Mary and her
husband might feel themselves master and mistress in the lower part of
the house.
'And if your husband really means to devote himself to literature, he
can have no better workshop than the library I have put together,' said
Lady Maulevrier.
'And no better adviser and guide than you, dear grandmother, you who
have read everything that has been written worth reading during the last
half century.'
'I have read a great deal, Mary, but I hardly know if I am any wiser on
that account,' answered Lady Maulevrier. 'After all, however much of
other people's wisdom we may devour, it is in ourselves that we are
thus, or thus. Our past follies rise up against us at the end of life;
and we see how little our book-learning has helped us to stand against
foolish impulses, against evil passions. "Be good," Mary, "and let who
will be wise," as the poet says. A faithful heart is your only anchor in
the stormy seas of life. My dear, I am so glad you are going to be
married.'
'It is very sudden,' said Mary.
'Very sudden; yet in your case that does not much matter. You have quite
made up your mind about Mr. Hammond, I believe.'
'Made up my mind! I began to worship him the first night he came here.'
'Foolish child. Well, there is no need to wait for settlements. You have
only your allowance as Lord Maulevrier's daughter--a first charge on the
estate, which cannot be made away with or anticipated, and of which no
husband can deprive you.'
'He shall have every sixpence of it,' murmured Mary.
'And Mr. Hammond, though he tells me he is better off than I supposed,
can have nothing to settle. So there will be nothing forfeited by a
marriage without settlements.'
Mary could not enter upon the question. It was even of less importance
than the wedding gown.
The gong sounded for luncheon.
'Steadman's dogcart is to take Mr. Hammond to the station at half-past
two,' said Lady Maulevrier, 'so you had better go and give him his
luncheon.'
Mary needed no second bidding. She flew downstairs, and met her lover in
the hall.
What a happy luncheon it was! Fräulein 'mounched, and mounched, and
mounched,' like the sailor's wife eating chestnuts: but those two lovers
lunched upon moonshine, upon each other's little words and little looks,
upon their own ineffable bliss. They sat side by side, and helped each
other to the nicest things on the table, but neither could eat, and
they got considerably mixed in their way of eating, taking chutnee with
strawberry cream, and currant jelly with asparagus. What did it matter?
Everything tasted of bliss.
'You have had absolutely nothing to eat,' said Mary, piteously, as the
dogcart came grinding round upon the dry gravel.
'Oh, I have done splendidly--thanks. I have just had a macaroon and some
of that capital gorgonzola. God bless you, dearest, and _à revoir, à
revoir_ to-morrow.'
'And to-morrow I shall be Mary Hammond,' cried Mary, clasping her hands.
'Isn't it capital fun?'
They were in the porch alone. The servants were all at dinner, save the
groom with the cart. Miss Müller was still munching at the well-spread
table in the dining-room.
John Hammond folded his sweetheart in his arms for one brief embrace;
there was no time for loitering. In another moment he was springing into
the cart. A shake of the reins, and he was driving slowly down the steep
avenue.
'Life is full of partings,' Mary said to herself, as she watched the
last glimpse of the dogcart between the trees down in the road below,
'but this one is to be very short, thank God.'
She wondered what she should do with herself for the rest of the
afternoon, and finally, finding that she was not wanted by her
grandmother until afternoon tea, she set out upon a round of visits to
her favourite cottagers, to bid them a long farewell as a spinster.
'You'll be away a long time, I suppose, Lady Mary?' said one of her
humble friends; 'you'll be going to Switzerland or Italy, or some of
those foreign parts where great ladies and gentlemen travel for their
honeymoons?'
But Mary declared that she would be absent a week at longest. She was
coming back to take care of her invalid grandmother; and she was not
going to marry a great gentleman, but a man who would have to work for
his living.
She went back to Fellside, and read the _Times_, and poured out Lady
Maulevrier's tea, and sat on her low stool by the sofa, and the old and
the young woman were as happy and confidential together as if they had
been always the nearest and dearest to each other. Her ladyship had seen
Miss Müller, and had informed that excellent person that her services at
Fellside would no longer be required after Lady Mary's marriage; but
that her devotion to her duties during the last fourteen years should be
rewarded by a pension which, together with her savings, would enable her
to spend the rest of her days in repose. Miss Müller was duly grateful,
and owned to a tender longing for the _Heimath_, and declared herself
ready to retire from her post whenever her ladyship pleased.
'I shall go back to Germany directly I leave you, and I shall live and
die there, unless I am wanted by one of my old pupils. But should Lady
Lesbia or Lady Mary need my services for their daughters, in days to
come, they can command me. For no one else will I abandon the
Fatherland.'
The Fräulein thus easily disposed of, Lady Mary felt that matrimony
would verily mean independence. And yet she was prepared to regard her
husband as her master. She meant to obey him in all meekness and
reverence of spirit.
She spent the rest of the afternoon and the whole of the evening in her
grandmother's sitting-room, dining _tête-à-tête_ with the invalid for
the first time since her illness. Lady Maulevrier talked much of Mary's
future, and of Lesbia's; but it was evident that she was full of
uneasiness upon the latter subject.
'I don't know what Lesbia is going to do with her life,' she said, with
a sigh. 'Her letters tell me of nothing but gowns and parties; and
Georgina Kirkbank can only expatiate upon Mr. Smithson's wealth, and the
grand position he is going to occupy by-and-by. I should like to see
both my granddaughters married before I die--yes, I should like to see
Lesbia's fate secure, if she were to be only Lady Lesbia Smithson.'
'She cannot fail to make a good match, grandmother,' said Mary.
'I am beginning to lose faith in her future,' answered Lady Maulevrier.
'There seems to be a fatality about the career of particularly
attractive girls. They are too confident of their power to succeed in
life. They trifle with fortune, fascinate the wrong people, and keep the
right people at arm's length. I think if I had been Lesbia's guide in
society her first season would have counted for more than it is likely
to count for under Lady Kirkbank's management. I should have awakened
Lesbia from the dream of dress and dancing--the mere butterfly life of a
girl who never looks beyond the present moment. But now go and give
orders about your packing, Mary. It is past ten, and Clara had better
pack your trunks early to-morrow morning.'
Clara was a modest Easedale damsel, who had been promoted to be Lady
Mary's personal attendant, when the more mature Kibble had gone away
with Lady Lesbia. Mary required very little waiting upon, but she was
not the less glad to have a neat little smiling maiden devoted to her
service, ready to keep her rooms neat and trim, to go on errands to the
cottagers, to arrange the flowers in the old china bowls, and to make
herself generally useful.
It seemed a strange thing to have to furnish a trousseau from the
wardrobe of everyday life--a trousseau in which nothing, except
half-a-dozen pairs of gloves, a pair of boots, and a few odds and ends
of lace and ribbons would be actually new. Mary thought very little of
the matter, but the position of things struck her maid as altogether
extraordinary and unnatural.
'You should have seen the things Miss Freeman had, Lady Mary,' exclaimed
the damsel, 'the daughter of that cotton-spinning gentleman from
Manchester, who lives at The Gables--you should have seen her new gowns
and things when she was married. Mrs. Freeman's maid keeps company with
my brother James--he's in the stables at Freeman's, you know, Lady
Mary--and she asked me in to look at the trousseau two days before the
wedding. I never saw such beautiful dresses--such hats--such
bonnets--such jackets and mantles. It was like going into one of those
grand shops at York, and having all the things in the shop pulled out
for one to look at--such silks and satins--and trimmed--ah! how those
dresses was trimmed. The mystery was how the young lady could ever get
herself into them, or sit down when she'd got one of them on.'
'Instruments of torture, Clara. I should hate such gowns, even if I were
going to marry a rich man, as I suppose Miss Freeman was.'
'Not a bit of it, Lady Mary. She was only going to marry a Bolton doctor
with a small practice; but her maid told me she was determined she'd get
all she could out of her pa, in case he should lose all his money and go
bankrupt. They said that trousseau cost two thousand pounds.'
'Well, Clara, I'd rather have my tailor gowns, in which I can scramble
about the ghylls and crags just as I like.' There was a pale yellow
Indian silk, smothered with soft yellow lace, which would serve for a
wedding gown; for indifferent as Mary was to the great clothes question,
she wanted to look in some wise as a bride. A neat chocolate-coloured
cloth, almost new from the tailor's hands, with a little cloth toque to
match, would do for the wedding journey. All the details of Mary's
wardrobe were the perfection of neatness. She had grown very neat and
careful in her habits since her engagement, anxious to be industrious
and frugal in all things--a really handy housewife for a hard-worked
bread-winner. And now she was told that Mr. Hammond was not so poor as
she had thought. She would not be obliged to stint herself, and manage,
as she had supposed when she went about among the cottagers, taking
lessons in household economy. It was almost a disappointment.
She and Clara finished the packing that night, Mary being much too
excited for the possibility of sleep. There was not much to pack, only
one roomy American trunk--a trunk which held everything--a Gladstone bag
for things that might possibly be wanted in a hurry, and a handsome
dressing-bag, Maulevrier's last birthday gift to his sister.
Mary had received no gifts from her lover, save the plain gold
engagement ring, and a few new books sent straight from the publishers.
Clara took care to inform her young mistress that Miss Freeman's
sweetheart had sent her all manner of splendid presents, scent bottles,
photograph albums, glove boxes, and other things of beauty, albeit his
means were supposed to be _nil_. It was evident that Clara disapproved
of Mr. Hammond's conduct in this matter, and even suspected him of
meanness.
'He did ought to have sent you his photograph, Lady Mary,' said Clara,
with a reproachful air.
'I daresay he would have done so, Clara, but he has been photographed
only once in his life.'
'Lawk a mercy, Lady Mary! Why most young gentlemen have themselves
photographed in every new place they go to; and as Mr. Hammond has been
a traveller, like his lordship, I made sure he'd have been photographed
in knickerbockers and every other kind of attitude.'
Mary had not refrained from asking for her lover's portrait; and he had
told her that he had carefully abstained from having his countenance
reproduced in any manner since his fifteenth year, when he had been
photographed at his mother's desire.
'The present fashion of photographs staring out of every stationer's
window makes a man's face public property,' he told Mary. 'I don't want
every street Arab in London to recognise me.'
'But you are not a public man,' said Mary. 'Your photograph would not be
in all the windows; although, in my humble opinion, you are a very
handsome man.'
Hammond blushed, laughed, and turned the conversation, and Mary had to
exist without any picture of her lover.
'Millais shall paint me in his grand Reynolds manner by-and-by,' he told
Mary.
'Millais! Oh, Jack! When will you and I be able to give a thousand or so
for a portrait?'
'Ah, when, indeed? But we may as well enjoy our day-dreams, like
Alnaschar, without smashing our basket of crockery.'
And now Mary, who had managed to exist without the picture, was to have
the original. He was to be all her own--her master, her lord, her love,
after to-morrow--unto eternity, in life, and in the grave, and in the
dim hereafter beyond the grave, they two were to be one. In heaven there
was to be no marrying or giving in marriage, Mary was told; but her own
heart cried aloud to her that the happily wedded must remain linked in
heaven. God would not part the blessed souls of true lovers.
A short sleep, broken by happy dreams, and it was morning, Mary's
wedding morning, fairest of summer days, July in all her beauty. Mary
went to her grandmother's room, and waited upon her at breakfast.
Lady Maulevrier was in excellent spirits.
'Everything is arranged, Mary. I have had a telegram from Hammond, who
has got the licence, and will come at half-past one. At three the Vicar
will come to marry you, his daughters, Katie and Laura, acting as your
bridesmaids.'
'Bridesmaids!' exclaimed Mary. 'I forgot all about bridesmaids. Am I
really to have any?'
'You will have two girls of your own age to bear you company, at any
rate. I have asked dear old Horton to be present; and he, Fräulein, and
Maulevrier will complete the party. It will not be a brilliant wedding,
Mary, or a costly ceremonial, except for the licence.'
'And poor Jack will have to pay for that,' said Mary, with a long face.
'Poor Jack refused to let me pay for it,' answered Lady Maulevrier. 'He
is vastly independent, and I fear somewhat reckless.'
'I like him for his independence; but he mustn't be reckless,' said
Mary, severely.
He was to be the master in all things! and yet she was to exercise a
restraining influence, she was to guard him against his own weaknesses,
his too generous impulses. Her voice was to be the voice of prudence.
This is how Mary understood the marriage tie.
Under ordinary conditions Mary would have been in the avenue, lying in
wait for her lover, eager to get the very first glimpse of him when he
arrived, to see him before he had brushed the dust of the journey from
his raiment. But to-day she hung back. She stayed in her grandmother's
room and sat beside the sofa, shy, and even a little downcast. This
lover who was so soon to be transformed into a husband was a formidable
personage. She dare not rush forth to greet him. Perhaps he had changed
his mind by this time, and was sorry he had ever asked her to marry him.
Perhaps he thought he was being hustled into a marriage. He had been
told that he was to wait at least a year. And now, all in a moment, he
was sent off to get a special licence. How could she be quite sure that
he liked this kind of treatment?
If there is any faith to be placed in the human countenance, Mr. Hammond
was in no wise an unwilling bridegroom; for his face beamed with happy
light as he came into the room presently, followed by an elderly man
with grey hair and whiskers, and in a strictly professional frock coat,
whom the butler announced as Mr. Dorncliffe. Lady Maulevrier looked
startled, somewhat offended even at this intrusion, and she gave Mr.
Dorncliffe a very haughty salutation, which was almost more crushing
than no salutation at all.
Mary stood up by her grandmother's sofa, and looked rather frightened.
'Dear Lady Maulevrier,' said Hammond, 'I ventured to telegraph to my
lawyer to meet me at York last night, and come on here with me this
morning. He has prepared a settlement, which I should like you to hear
him read, and which he will explain to you, if necessary, while Molly
and I go for a stroll in the grounds.'
He had never called her Molly before. He put his arm round her with a
proud air of possession, even under her grandmother's eyes. And she
nestled close up to his side, forgetting everything but the delight of
belonging to him.
They went downstairs, and through the billiard room to the terrace, and
from the terrace to the tennis lawn, where John Hammond sat reading
Heine nearly a year ago, just before he proposed to Lesbia.
'Do you remember that day?' asked Mary, looking at him, solemnly.
'I remember every day and every hour we have spent together since I began
to love you,' answered Hammond.
'Ah, but this was before you began to love me,' said Mary, with a
piteous little grimace. 'This was while you were loving Lesbia as hard
as ever you could. Don't you remember the day you proposed to her--a
lovely summer day like this, the lake just as blue, the sun shining upon
Fairfield just as it is shining now, and you sat there reading
Heine--those sweet, sweet verses, that seemed made of sighs and tears;
and every now and then you paused and looked up at Lesbia, and there was
more love in your eyes than in all Heine's poetry, though that brims
over with love.'
'But how did you know all this, Molly? You were not here.'
'I was not very far off. I was behind those bushes, watching and
listening. I knew you were in love with Lesbia, and I thought you
despised me, and I was very, very wretched; and I listened afterwards
when you proposed to her there--behind the pine trees--and I hated her
for refusing you, and I am afraid I hated you for proposing to her.'
'When I ought to have been proposing to my Molly, blind fool that I
was,' said Hammond, smiling tenderly at her, smiling, though his eyes
were dim with tears. 'My own sweet love, it was a terrible mistake, a
mistake that might have cost me the happiness of a lifetime. But Fate
was very good to me, and let me have my Mary after all. And now let us
sit down under the old red beech and talk till it is time to go and get
ready for our wedding. I suppose one ought to brush one's hair and wash
one's hands for that kind of thing, even when the function is not on a
ceremonious scale.'
Mary laughed.
'I have a prettier gown than this to be married in, although it isn't a
wedding gown,' she said.
'Oh, by-the-by, I have something for you,' said her lover, 'something in
the way of ornaments, but I don't suppose you'd care to wear them
to-day. I'll run and get them.'
He went back to the house, leaving Mary sitting on the rustic bench
under the fine old copper beech, a tree that had been standing long
before Lady Maulevrier enlarged the old stone house into a stately
villa. He returned in a few minutes, bringing a morocco bag about the
size of those usually carried by lawyers or lawyers' clerks.
'I don't think I have given you anything since we were engaged, Mary,'
he said, as he seated himself by her side.
Mary blushed, remembering how Clara, the maid, had remarked upon this
fact.
'You gave me my ring,' she said, looking down at the massive band of
gold, 'and you have given me ever so many delightful books.'
'Those were very humble gifts, Molly: but to-day I have brought you a
wedding present.'
He opened the bag and took out a red morocco case, and then half-a-dozen
more red morocco cases of various shapes and sizes. The first looked
new, but the others were old-fashioned and passing shabby, as if they
had been knocking about brokers' shops for the last quarter of a
century.
'There is my wedding gift, Mary,' he said, handing her the new case.
It contained an exquisitely painted miniature of a very beautiful woman,
in a large oval locket set with sapphires.
'You have asked me for my portrait, dearest,' he said. 'I give you my
mother's rather than my own, because I loved her as I never thought to
love again, till I knew you. I should like you to wear that locket
sometimes, Mary, as a kind of link between the love of the past and the
love of the present. Were my mother living, she would welcome and
cherish my bride and my wife. She is dead, and you and she can never
meet on earth: but I should like you to be familiar with the face which
was once the light of my life.'
Mary's eyes filled with tears as she gazed at the face in the miniature.
It was the portrait of a woman of about thirty--a face of exquisite
refinement, of calm and pensive beauty.
'I shall treasure this picture always, above all things,' she said: but
'why did you have it set so splendidly, Jack? No gems were needed to
give your mother's portrait value in my eyes.'
'I know that, dearest, but I wanted to make the locket worth wearing.
And now for the other cases. The locket is your lover's free gift, and
is yours to keep and to bequeath to your children. These are heirlooms,
and yours only during your husband's lifetime.'
He opened one of the largest cases, and on a bed of black velvet Mary
beheld a magnificent diamond necklace, with a large pendant. He opened
another and displayed a set of sprays for the hair. Another contained
earrings, another bracelets, the last a tiara.
'What are they for?' gasped Mary.
'For my wife to wear.'
'Oh, but I could never wear such things,' she exclaimed, with an idea
that these must be stage jewellery. 'They are paste, of course--very
beautiful for people who like that kind of thing--but I don't.'
She felt deeply shocked at this evidence of bad taste on the part of her
lover. How the things flashed in the sunshine--but so did the crystal
drops in the old Venetian girandoles.
'No, Molly, they are not paste; they are Brazilian diamonds, and, as
Maulevrier would say, they are as good as they make them. They are
heirlooms, Molly. My dear mother wore them in her summer-tide of wedded
happiness. My grandmother wore them for thirty years before her; my
great grandmother wore them at the Court of Queen Charlotte, and they
were worn at the Court of Queen Anne. They are nearly two hundred years
old; and those central stones in the tiara came out of a cap worn by the
Great Mogul, and are the largest table diamonds known. They are
historic, Mary.'
'Why, they must be worth a fortune.'
'They are valued at something over seventy thousand pounds.'
'But why don't you sell them?' exclaimed Mary, opening her eyes wide
with surprise, 'they would give you a handsome income.'
'They are not mine to sell, Molly. Did not I tell you that they are
heirlooms? They are the family jewels of the Countesses of Hartfield.'
'Then what are you?'
'Ronald Hollister, Earl of Hartfield, and your adoring lover!'
Mary gave a cry of surprise, a cry of distress even.
'Oh, that is too dreadful!' she exclaimed; 'grandmother will be so
unhappy. She had set her heart upon Lesbia marrying Lord Hartfield, the
son of the man _she_ loved.'
'I got wind of her wish more than a year ago,' said Hartfield, 'from
your brother; and he and I hatched a little plot between us. He told me
Lesbia was not worthy of his friend's devotion--told me that she was
vain and ambitious--that she had been educated to be so. I determined to
come and try my fate. I would try to win her as plain John Hammond. If
she was a true woman, I told myself, vanity and ambition would be blown
to the four winds, provided I could win her love. I came, I saw her; and
to see was to love her. God knows I tried honestly to win her; but I
had sworn to myself that I would woo her as John Hammond, and I did not
waver in my resolution--no, not when a word would have turned the scale.
She liked me, I think, a little; but she did not like the notion of an
obscure life as the wife of a hardworking professional man. The pomps
and vanities of this world had it against love or liking, and she gave
me up. I thank God that the pomps and vanities prevailed; for this happy
chance gave me Mary, my sweet Wordsworthian damsel, found, like the
violet or the celandine, by the wayside, in Wordsworth's own country.'
'And you are Lord Hartfield!' exclaimed Mary, still lost in wonder, and
with no elation at this change in the aspect of her life. 'I always knew
you were a great man. But poor grandmother! It will be a dreadful
disappointment to her.'
'I think not. I think she has learned my Molly's value; rather late, as
I learned it; and I believe she will be glad that one of her
granddaughters should marry the son of her first lover. Let us go to
her, love, and see if she is reconciled to the idea, and whether the
settlement is ready for execution. Dorncliffe and his clerk were working
at it half through the night.'
'What is the good of a settlement?' asked Mary. 'I'm sure I don't want
one.'
'Lady Hartfield must not be dependent upon her husband's whim or
pleasure for her milliner's bill or her private charities,' answered her
lover, smiling at her eagerness to repudiate anything business-like.
'But I would rather be dependent on your pleasure. I shall never have
any milliner's bills; and I am sure you would never deny me money for
charity.'
'You shall not have to ask me for it, except when you have exceeded your
pin-money. I hope you will do that now and then, just to afford me the
pleasure of doing you a favour.'
'Hartfield,' repeated Mary, to herself, as they went towards the house;
'shall I have to call you Hartfield? I don't like the name nearly so
well as Jack.'
'You shall call me Jack for old sake's sake,' said Hartfield, tenderly.
'How did you think of such a name as Jack?'
'Rather an effort of genius, wasn't it. Well, first and foremost I was
christened Ronald John--all the Hollisters are christened John--name of
the founder of the race; and, secondly, Maulevrier and I were always
plain Mr. Morland and Mr. Hammond in our travels, and always called each
other Jack and Jim.'
'How nice!' said Mary; 'would you very much mind our being plain Mr. and
Mrs. Hammond, while we are on our honeymoon trip?'
'I should like it of all things.'
'So should I. People will not take so much notice of us, and we can do
what we like, and go where we like.'
'Delightful! We'll even disguise ourselves as Cook's tourists, if you
like. I would not mind.'
They were at the door of Lady Maulevrier's sitting room by this time.
They went in, and were greeted with smiles.
'Let me look at the Countess of Hartfield that is to be in half an
hour,' said her ladyship. 'Oh, Mary, Mary, what a blind idiot I have
been, and what a lucky girl you are! I told you once that you were wiser
than Lesbia, but I little thought how much wiser you had been.'