niece of Admiral Sir John Villiers; her father dead; her mother married
again to a hunting, racing type of man who wanted no stepdaughter
about. So fair Lyndis was staying with her uncle for the time, looking
after the housekeeping in return for his kind protection. But Roscoria
gathered much hope that his suit might possibly be the means of
relieving her from any unsettled feeling that she might have about
her future. And thus it came to pass that at the termination of their
fifth dance together they were sitting in a ferny grotto--the goddess
was all robed in blue this time, as if she had brought down a piece of
summer sky trailing after her--and Louis began all at once to show the
tenderness he felt.
There was a little of the usual fencing with the subject, and then
Roscoria came out with a few leading questions. He had heard
rumors--very disquieting rumors--in short, would she set his mind at
rest?
Lyndis bent the glory of her mystic eyes upon him for an instant,
whilst she said:
"I was going to be married, but we were obliged to put it off. Where
are you going, Mr. Roscoria?"
"I don't know," said Louis miserably. He had risen and taken a few
steps away, but he came back again and leant against the wall by her
side, breathing quick and brokenly.
"What is the matter?"
"Oh!" groaned Roscoria, "I wanted you."
He heard no answer, so he straightened up and took her kind hand and
said, "Never mind; I was a fool not to be silent; but--but--if you had
known your own charm, would you have made me so unhappy?"
Then there seemed a light in her eyes which was not there before, and a
whisper was borne to him low and far away as if it were the echo of the
voice of Fate thousands of years ago:
"By the favor of Heaven I am free!"
Shortly afterward Louis believed he heard himself saying, "Why did you
forsake him, for _he_ never did it?"
"The admiral forced the match upon me--he is so arbitrary! I consented
in a cowardly moment; but that was before I had seen you. The gentleman
I was betrothed to saw I was not contented before even I knew it
myself; he himself volunteered to release me. Of all the unselfish men
I know, Mr. Rodda is----"
("The deuce he is!") thought Roscoria to himself. "_Not_ Eric Rodda,
Miss Villiers--the young fellow I tutored at Rome! Brother of Tom? Poor
fellow! I feel like a brute, somehow."
"No use to feel so, Louis; it was all over before ever I saw you."
"'Louis'--you darling! Could you put up with a very modest style of
existence--at Torres? You said you admired the situation."
"Oh! are you poor?"
"The proverbial church-mouse is a Rothschild to me."
"What a cruel thing that is!" sighed Lyndis; "when the admiral, my
mother, my stepfather, all insist on my marrying a rich man."
"Then, my dear lady, go and do it in Heaven's name!" cried Roscoria,
and at sight of her surprised face he said, repentantly, "I beg your
pardon--Lyndis--darling."
"Which do you put first?" asked Lyndis, smiling sweetly, "Obedience or
Love?"
"Love," emphatically responded Louis.
"Oh, Mr. Roscoria, and you a schoolmaster!"
"And you, Miss Villiers, tell me, do you prefer the main chance, or me?"
"Alas! I am no lover of abstractions."
She came a little toward him as she said it, and he had her hand again.
"This dear hand--shall it be mine?"
No answer, save that propitious starlight in her eyes.
"Lyndis, one kiss, that I may know you are mortal."
"I daren't," she said, and gave him one. "If the admiral _were_ to come
round the corner---- I say no more."
She gave him a stephanotis from her hair to keep as her favor, and then
whispered apprehensively:
"You have no idea what a naval officer can be when he takes to
match-making. I shall have to fight this out some day with him."
"No; allow me," said Roscoria.
"If you dare; but--_this_ is after supper."
("Oh, how _can_ you?") expostulated the lover.
Then, being a serious maiden, who knew what she was doing, Lyndis
pressed his hand and quietly, but finally, spoke:
"Mr. Roscoria, go home and think it over."
She had stepped into the brilliant light of the ballroom, and vanished
from his sight. Roscoria went home as in a dream. A shifting picture
was before him--in front, smiling scenes of bliss and love; in the
background, Nemesis, in the garb of a naval officer.
VI.
THE ADMIRAL IS SQUARED.
Admiral Sir John Villiers was of all landowners the most peppery.
He could not keep on terms with the farmers, his tenants; he never
attempted to be on terms with his relations, and his warlike attitude
toward the owner of the adjacent property of Torres was notorious.
A man so revelling in storms as the admiral must needs have _some_
quarrel with his next-door neighbor, and the subject-matter is easily
found. A bit of land contested, a dubiousness of fence, and behold Sir
John Villiers rampant. The makings of a despot had the admiral; he was
kindness itself (in his imperious way) so long as he was not crossed;
but oppose the most reasonable of wills to his and England itself, let
alone Devonshire, was not large enough to contain him.
Unfortunately, it was Roscoria who happened to be the next-door
neighbor, and very warm the admiral made the neighborhood.
Roscoria loved every inch of Torres, and held his own with an iron
grip. The admiral took it into his head that a corner on the boundary
of the two properties belonged to himself, and he set himself to wrest
it from Roscoria. A little representation and cajolery he tried first,
then threats, for he did not mean to be ousted by an impudent young
puppy like Louis Roscoria. But the owner of Torres stood firm.
The relations were thus a little strained, when a glorious piece of
strategy occurred to Louis the lover. He had just declared himself to
Lyndis, and had received her assurance that she loved him in return,
and would marry him gladly could the admiral be squared.
So Roscoria arranged a dinner at Torres Hall, Tregurtha and two or
three others to be present, and then went over himself to invite the
admiral. Sir John Villiers hemmed and ha'd, and would have curtly
declined to enter the young man's house, but, scenting the battle afar
off, and hoping for a good rousing tussle, he consented, grimly.
Some fine old port came up from the cellar of Torres, and a very jolly
party Roscoria and Tregurtha managed to make of it. The admiral, who
came in at first snuffing haughtily and twirling his eyeglass with the
most warlike aspect imaginable, was soothed and smoothed as the wine
went round, and at last began to tell stories.
Propitious circumstance! Need we say how the young men roared with
laughter at indifferent naval anecdotes, and greeted one effort at an
august pun with clamorous applause? Tregurtha burst forth at last,
followed by the others, into the _Lobgesang_, "For he's a jolly
good fellow!" and this was the signal for Roscoria to edge himself
confidentially close to the admiral and insinuate:
"Indeed, sir, we are all convinced of this, and it makes me
all the more regretful that there should be any--any small
mis--mis--understanding." (Roscoria here grew very nervous, and
stammered a good deal.) "Fact is, Sir John, we all think here that
things could be most comfortably settled if--if you could be content to
make one small sacrifice. You have a niece----"
"The sacrifice, sir, if any is made, must be on _your_ side," quoth the
admiral, kindling; "though I don't deny that if you were to marry my
niece it might thus be made to my full and complete satisfaction."
"Precisely, Sir John; and in that case, without further difficulty, I
give up to you the 'boundary-plot,' which, I am afraid, you have long
wished to possess."
"Wished, sir--_wished_? It is mine!" The admiral smote the table with
his fist; the glasses jingled; he remembered the port, and, drinking
some, was cheered.
"Yours, Sir John--yours from this moment if you consent to lay Miss
Villiers' hand in mine," Roscoria spoke with ardor; the other men
gathered round with interest, and the admiral saw he was expected to
say the handsome thing. He rebelled at first.
"Young man," he said, "your hospitality is of a somewhat treacherous
character."
"Pardon me, Sir John," retorted Roscoria. "I believe I have made you an
honorable proposal. If it takes place whilst you are drinking my wine,
well, sir, all that I can say is--I trust you find the port is good."
"Excellent--excellent. I have no fault to find with the wine. The wine,
sir, is unexceptionable. I wish only I found your offer the same."
"Come now, admiral," interposed Tregurtha, good-humoredly, "what's a
niece? You are rid of a tiresome responsibility, and the lady gets an
honest husband."
"H'm! honesty is his _forte_, is it? Shouldn't have thought it,"
muttered the admiral; but he was giving in.
"There is one objection," he said, moving uneasily. "Miss Villiers
is under age; but then girls are headstrong nowadays. What if she
declines?"
"Ah! she'll not decline," said Roscoria, with a joyous ring in his
voice.
"Indeed, sir! Then there has been a little clandestine love-affair
between you already, has there? The hussy!"
"_Well_, admiral, we don't generally make our first tentative advances
in the presence of the guardians--now do we?" put in the ready
Tregurtha.
"I suppose not, you rascal; I suppose not," said the admiral, and pen
and paper were laid before him.
"Now mind, Sir John," Roscoria warned him jocularly, "this transaction
may not be strictly legal; but there is such a thing as the Court of
Honor. I am sure of my own intentions, I can guess at the lady's, and
this writing is to hold you to yours."
The admiral only nodded impatiently, and wrote down in good set terms
an agreement to give his niece in marriage to Louis Roscoria on
condition of that landowner and his heirs forever resigning all claim
of ownership to the boundary-plot of Braceton Park. He threw the paper
across to the young men to sign as witnesses, and then returned to his
glass and his yarn. The old fellow's somewhat shaken good-humor was
quickly restored. He was finally put into his greatcoat and sent home
in his brougham, feeling vaguely uncomfortable, but softly singing a
nautical ditty.
Roscoria knew no discomfort nor repentance, but danced the hornpipe
with Tregurtha.
VII.
ROSCORIA'S BETROTHED.
Rosetta Villiers was looking very uncomfortable. She had taken a seat
opposite to her uncle, the admiral, and was cross-questioning him
with a certain sternness, before which the old sinner was quailing
considerably.
"Mr. Roscoria made you this offer, you say? It is most extraordinary: I
scarcely have seen him."
"Why, Rosetta, he gave me to understand--at least, he hinted at
something like an _affaire de coeur_ between you."
"Affaire de fiddlestick!" cried Miss Villiers, rising in real
indignation; "the man _must_ have been exceeding! Why, upon my word,
the conceit of these young men! I suppose, passing me in the lanes once
or twice, he was slightly taken with my looks, and supposes me to have
been equally entranced by his. I should really like to see him, uncle,
to give him a piece of my mind."
"Well, that is the most sensible thing you have said, Rosetta," agreed
the admiral, "for you must anyway see this fellow, and make it up with
him somehow, to save my credit as a man of my word. I admit it's a
deuced awkward business, but since I consented to it--in cold blood
mind, Rosetta, I repeat that I had _not_ had too much--I am bound to
stick by the contract, and I suppose you, being included in it, are at
least called upon to bear me out."'
"I never knew such a fearful scrape!" cried Rosetta, with a rush of
despairing tears to her eyes. And then, being very brave of nature, she
shook herself together and pondered. She was a real child still, only
sixteen, and had never been much in the company of older ladies. She
was, therefore, quite unprepared to enter upon any matrimonial plans
of her own, and--clever as she was--dwelt in surprising ignorance of
the world. No course then could her inexperience suggest, except that
of saving her uncle's reputation by adhering to the contract. And as
she thought and accustomed herself to the strange idea, her young face
lighted up with humorous smiles, and she threw up her head with a
delightful sense of enterprise.
"Sir," she began, turning solemnly upon the shamefaced admiral, "I feel
that you have treated me with scant consideration, and plunged me early
into the difficulties of a matronly career. Nevertheless, such is my
care for the family reputation that--I'll marry Louis Roscoria!" she
concluded, with a sudden gust of laughter.
"Yes; he is learned, is he not? And I remember him as very
good-looking," she added, with a blush; "large, soft eyes, if I am not
mistaken. I _suppose_ one can fall in love, given a man so handsome.
_Allons--essayons!_ But if I don't give it him for this abominable
deception, then I don't feel the blood of my Spanish ancestors on the
mother's side coursing vigorously through my veins! Sir, I consent."
The admiral (who was honestly afraid of his spoilt niece) confounded
himself in thanks and praise, and privately thanked also his stars that
his ward had grown up so unsophisticated. With that tricksy Spanish
spirit of hers, had she taken this affair in a different light she
might have got me into fearful trouble, he thought, softly whistling
directly the descendant of the hidalgos had turned the corner.
Next day was fixed for Roscoria's introduction. On hearing the complete
success of his stratagem, Louis arrayed himself regardless of expense
and hastened to Braceton Park. He gave Tregurtha leave to follow him in
an hour--"to be introduced to the lady, who, I suppose, will then be my
betrothed," he said.
Admitted into the drawing-room, Roscoria was left alone for what seemed
to him an awful while. He grew nervous, and fluttered at every sound
in the room. The clock annoyed him inexpressibly, and he started every
time he faced a mirror. At last, in despair, he clutched his hat and
stick, and sat down in orderly stiffness with his back to the door, and
tried to abstract his thoughts. But they would dwell on his Lyndis, and
it was no use to try and "sit like his grandsire carved in alabaster."
Suddenly there was a light sound of approach, and a tremulous, sweet
voice close to his ear said simply:
"Good-afternoon, Mr. Roscoria."
Louis bounded on his chair as by galvanism, dropped his incumbrances,
and spread forth a pair of eager arms, into which Rosetta, thinking
this was all in the day's work, was actually preparing submissively to
walk, when he saw that something was wrong.
"Ten _thousand_ pardons!" he cried.
"Not at all," said Rosetta, smiling. "It is quite natural that you
should feel deeply upon an occasion like this." And then she rubbed her
small hands together bashfully, and waited with a beating heart for the
beginning of his courtship.
"But I hope you see my mistake," urged Louis, still in smiling
embarrassment. "I took you, in fact, for another lady."
"But; I _am_ the other lady," said Rosetta.
"Ah!--Miss Villiers I was expecting."
"Precisely, I am Miss Villiers," said Rosetta, with firmness.
Roscoria looked the lady in the face. She was a very young looking
creature, small, but rather strongly made, with a striking white face
and great blue-black eye with a latent, passionate fire in the very
depths of them. She had a resolute small chin and a decided mouth.
Louis thought her, spite of her prettiness, the most tremendous
interlocutor he had ever met. He turned absolutely faint with sudden
horror, and grasped a chair, saying feebly:
"But Miss Villiers was tall and fair."
"Oh, my cousin do you mean? Yes; she will be in directly.
But--but"--(Rosetta's face grew whiter and her eyes larger with the
shock of discovery)--"you did not mean _her_, surely?"
"Excuse me--I did--and do."
"Then allow me to assure you, Mr. Roscoria, that the admiral did _not_.
My cousin, Lyndis Villiers, is his niece and guest merely; it is I who
am his ward since my father died in a naval engagement. He has made a
very natural mistake. Lyndis is supposed to be out of the question,
being engaged to marry a former pupil of yours--Mr. Eric Rodda.
The admiral of course assumed that you meant me when you made your
extraordinary request. I may mention that I thought it odd at the time."
"Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! I am punished this time!" groaned Roscoria, and,
without even keeping up a pretense of ceremony, he sank on the table
and sat there, rocking himself backward and forward. Rosetta laughed
as one who had lost a load of care. She was now free to rejoice at
the misfortunes of another, and for the first moment could not resist
doing so. She stood opposite Roscoria and laughed at him and his
discomfiture, like the child she really was.
"Not that I mean the least disrespect to you, my dear Miss _Villiers_,"
apologized Roscoria, out of the depths of his lamentations; "if only,
like my predecessor Jacob when in a similar predicament, I could take
_both_, how glad, how thankful I should be! But as it is, dear Miss
Villiers, your cousin is so much to me--and--I thought I had got
her!--in short, I know you will excuse me."
"Excuse you? Why, I am so thankful myself!" breathed out Rosetta.
"Thanks: it is very kind of you to say so. It makes it much easier for
me," sighed Roscoria, gratefully.
At that moment enter the admiral, walking sideways and fumbling with
the door-handle as one who fears to interrupt a _tete-a-tete_.
Roscoria came forward in penitent guise, and began to explain the
unlucky mistake that had arisen, and how it was Miss _Lyndis_ Villiers
toward whom his heart had yearned.
The admiral snorted. His temper arose. Both the young people knew
they were in for it. Sir John Villiers withered them both with his
sea-faring eye.
"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed Roscoria, also a little irritably. "If
I tear up that paper, and leave you in possession of that bit of land,
and say no more of my marriage in connection with it, but try to gain
Miss _Lyndis_ Villiers as a separate undertaking, I suppose it will be
all right?"
"Rosetta Villiers is an heiress, so if she pleases to throw herself
away on a poor school master--he's no worse than the good-for-nothing
military men who generally get the heiress--but Lyndis Villiers has not
a penny, and I owe it to my second brother's memory to see that his
orphaned child does not marry any impecunious young gentleman. Besides,
she is suitably affianced to Mr. Rodda's eldest son. She is, therefore,
out of the question."
"For the moment let us assume it," said Roscoria (who, we remember, was
better informed); "but in that case, naturally, Miss Rosetta Villiers
is free."
A very gentlemanly young man! thought Rosetta approvingly.
"I do not see it, sir," said the admiral, unfurling a handkerchief like
a challenge flag. "I will neither give up the field nor permit you to
go without your share in the bargain."
"Then give me a trifling consideration in money," suggested
Roscoria--"if Miss Villiers will kindly pardon my entering upon such
matters in her presence."
"That piece of land and my niece are, in my estimation, priceless.
Only the one, sir, is a sufficient substitute for the other. Besides,
I decline to have any shilly-shallying in this affair. It will be all
over the place to-morrow that Rosetta accepted you and you threw her
over."
"Let it be; I accepted the position," said Rosetta.
"I will _not_ let it be," stormed the admiral. "If a young man thinks
he can play fast and loose with a niece of mine, let him try--let him
try!"
Here Rosetta, growing really frightened, hastily went out and returned
with sherry and biscuits, which she pressed upon Roscoria's acceptance
in the midst of his indignant rejoinder to her uncle. Mechanically the
young man received the refreshments, and, holding his glass in one hand
and taking a fierce bite of his biscuit, he said loudly, and turning
toward the lady, "I protest again, Sir John Villiers, that I have not
the slightest intention of playing fast and loose with Miss Rosetta,
and she knows it as well as I do----"
And the door opened, and Lyndis Villiers was in the midst of them.
Now this time, of course, Roscoria was unnerved, and did nothing but
turn very white and set down his glass and look away. Therefore Lyndis,
hearing his last speech, seeing him in excited converse with her uncle
and her pretty cousin, and eating and drinking as if he were there for
the day, harbored a deep suspicion of her lover. There was a painful
silence.
Then the admiral began again:
"Lyndis, come here! Do you know Mr. Roscoria?" and Lyndis lifted her
clear gray eyes upon Louis and said, "Yes, certainly."
Then Roscoria recovered himself and shook his beloved by the hand, and
murmured, "Good-morning, dearest; I am in an awful scrape."
And Rosetta confided to Lyndis that the admiral was past human
guidance, and it was to be hoped that Providence would interfere.
Of course Lyndis knew nothing of what was toward, and a laborious
explanation had to take place, at the end of which the tall, fair
Englishwoman looked rather shocked, and murmured something about
"unjustifiable liberty," which was directed at Roscoria. He took up the
attack by a counter-charge:
"Is it true that you, as the admiral says, are still engaged to Eric
Rodda?"
Lyndis raised her eyes again to Roscoria's, this time with a furtive
memory of love-making in them, and responded decidedly, "No, it is not."
"Sir," she continued, turning to the admiral, "Mr. Rodda is coming this
afternoon to break this to you."
"Break it to me!" irascibly exclaimed the admiral. "How many more
things am I to have broken to me this day? I should like to break a
thick stick to these fellows! Why can't they stick to their engagements
as I do? Precious attractive they seem to find you two young women.
I wonder you are not ashamed, Lyndis, to come and tell me that your
fellow has given you the slip too."
"Oh, I say!" expostulated Roscoria, and he dared--before the
admiral--to put his arm round Lyndis' waist.
"Look at them, sir!" said Rosetta, in a motherly aside. "I'd go to the
rack with Spanish fortitude before I would cross young love."
"Lieutenant Tregurtha!" announced the footman, and in came Dick with an
air of "Bless you, my children!" about him. He was stopped on the very
threshold, though, by recognizing in Miss Rosetta Villiers a dear, if
new, attraction.
"Hallo!" he exclaimed. "Why, this _is_ delightful, you know!" and shook
her warmly and long by the hand.
Rosetta ordered a fresh glass for the sherry, and Lyndis inhaled the
odor of the hyacinths in the flower-stand, whilst Roscoria bent over
her, earnestly engaged in making his peace. The admiral, who had been
quelled for the moment, burst out afresh. In trembling accents he
said, waving his hand:
"Ladies, leave us, if you please!" and Lyndis and Rosetta, knowing
what impended, hastily made for the door, Roscoria finding time to bow
out his adored just before Sir John broke into a torrent, a storm,
hurricane, gust, squall, half-gale, great-guns-blowing (or any other
nautical simile) of language.
The young men listened with respectful disapprobation (for to
attempt to stem the course of the admiral's diction was at all times
dangerous). When the sea-faring gentleman's invention was somewhat
ebbing, Tregurtha was in an undertone acquainted with its source. The
moment when it seemed of any use, Roscoria began again on his suit. He
pleaded, urged, lost his temper, found it again, represented, reasoned,
chaffed the admiral, appealed to his friend--and all in vain. Lyndis
was steadily denied to him.
"And Miss Rosetta?" asked the lieutenant; but this question, which to
him was most important, got lost, as totally irrelevant to the matter
in hand. In despair the tired and heated Roscoria was gently led away
by his friend, and the moment they appeared out of doors they were
cheered by the sight of the ladies, who were waiting in the garden.
"It has not gone well with you, has it, Louis?" asked Lyndis anxiously.
"Gone well! It has gone vilely, Lyndis. Why do you encourage such a
curmudgeon of a peppery old Cambyses as an uncle?"
"_My_ relative, if you please, sir," said the loyal Lyndis. "Why do you
get us all into such scrapes, you inconsiderate, duped Hotspur?"
"Because I am in love, most beautiful; they say it affects the
intellect. So tell me what we are to do now."
"Well--would you like to give me up?"
"Don't," prayed the lover, with an imploring gaze at his goddess. "Say
something cheering, for--eh! it _was_ warm in there."