MRS. RICHARDS’ GREAT EXPECTATIONS.
The following day Mr. Meredith, according to his promise, went to dine
with Lord Carrol at his mother’s elegant mansion near Belgrave Square.
After the meal was over, and the other guests comfortably disposed of,
Archie took his friend up into the “sanctum,” as he called it, for a
smoke and a quiet talk.
If Lord Carrol suspected anything of the feeling which Ralph had
entertained for Star, he gave no sign, but confided to him, as they sat
there together, more of his hopes and plans for the future, and spoke
with much more of freedom regarding Star than he had done the day
before.
When they had finished their cigars, Lord Carrol arose and said:
“Come inside, Mr. Meredith, and I will show you one of my treasures.”
He went back into his “sanctum,” followed by Ralph, and passing by all
the beautiful paintings, drawings, and engravings which hung upon the
walls, he walked to an easel which stood in a corner, and removing a
cloth that covered it, stepped back for his friend to look.
Ralph Meredith gave one look, and then exclaimed, in unfeigned surprise:
“Star!”
“Yes, it is Star,” Lord Carrol said, with a tender smile, as he looked
upon the portrait. “I am glad you recognize her, for I should be sorry
if she had changed so much that you could not. This is a picture which I
love, and which I keep for myself alone. It is very seldom that I show
it to any one, and I have never told its history to any living being
until I told it to you last night. As she stood there that morning in
her modest beauty, severing that tress at my request, I began to love
her with a love that will never die while I live. I have that little
lock of gold here now, Mr. Meredith,” he said, touching the
diamond-studded locket which hung from his watch-chain, “and untold
wealth could not purchase it from me. Here is the cameo also which I
gave her in exchange, and of which I told you, too, last night,” and he
held up his left hand, on the little finger of which gleamed the ring
that Josephine Richards had made of it. “Ah,” he added, with a sigh, “it
is hard to think that she could believe me so false—so treacherous and
cowardly, as to win her love and then cast it aside as of no value.”
“Yet it was very natural for her to think so under the circumstances,”
Ralph returned, thoughtfully. “You must realize that yourself, for you
say that on Saturday you declared your affection for her under the name
of Archibald Sherbrooke, and won an expression of her own for you in
return; while on the Monday following you appeared in Mr. Richards’
family as Lord Carrol, who, she had been told, was a suitor for his
daughter’s hand. It does not seem strange to me that she should think
the very worst of you. You certainly were in a false position before
her, and it must have been a severe blow to her pride as well as to her
affection; for, as we have seen, Miss Gladstone is not lacking either in
self-respect or spirit.”
“No, I suppose it is not strange; but, oh! if she would but have given
me one minute, I could have convinced her of her mistake, and all the
sorrow that has followed might have been avoided,” sighed the young
lord, as, with another fond glance at the picture, he covered it again
and turned away.
“You will be more successful when you go to her again,” Ralph said,
cheerfully.
“Yes,” Archie returned, with firmly compressed lips; “Miss Gladstone
_will_ listen to me when I go to her again. It is but right that she
should hear my justification, whether she receives it favorably or
otherwise.”
“I have no fear of the result,” his guest returned, smiling; “for Miss
Gladstone acknowledged to me that, in spite of her belief in your
unworthiness, her affection for you remained the same.”
A flush of joy shot over Lord Carrol’s face at this.
“Did she tell you that?” he asked, eagerly. “Then I will doubt no more;
and I have _you_ to thank for bestowing such happiness upon me as I
never expected to know again.”
They spent a half hour longer looking at other pictures, but sweet
sounds coming up again from the drawing-room distracted Ralph’s
attention and tempted him below.
“Do I not hear the fair songstress of last night again?” he asked.
“Yes, that is Vivien singing,” replied her brother.
“I am very fond of music; shall we rejoin the company?”
They went down, and, seeking the fair Vivien’s side, Ralph Meredith
spent a most delightful evening, the memory of which clung to him for
many a week afterward.
The next morning he left London for a three-months’ tour through
Scotland, Ireland, and the Continent.
* * * * *
Mrs. Richards sat in her handsome boudoir one morning a few weeks later,
reading a newspaper.
Something had evidently gone wrong with her, for her face was overcast,
an angry red glowed in her cheeks, and her eyes gleamed with a sullen
fire.
The reason for this was the flat refusal, on the part of Mr. Richards,
to accede to her immoderate demand for five hundred dollars, to purchase
for herself and Josephine new dresses for the coming winter, and she had
just returned to her room after the stormy interview.
“I cannot let you have a dollar,” he had said, with a gravity almost
amounting to sternness, “for I haven’t it to spare.”
“Not a _dollar_, George!” she retorted, with a scornful laugh. “Who ever
heard of anything so absurd?”
“It is true, nevertheless,” he answered, gloomily. “Two months ago I
expected that to-day would find us all beggars.”
“What _do_ you mean?” his wife gasped.
“Just what I say; and but for the appearance of a friendly hand just
when and where I least expected it, I should have been obliged to fail,
overwhelmed with debt and disgrace, and everything we have—house,
furniture, horses, and carriages—would all have had to come under the
hammer of the auctioneer.”
“I cannot believe it,” Mrs. Richards said, growing pale.
“That does not alter the fact, however,” her husband replied,
laconically.
“Why did you not tell me?”
“I _did_ tell you. I kept writing to you when you were at Newport,
Ellen, that I could not long endure such a drain upon my purse as you
were subjecting it to, and that you must curtail your expenses; but you
paid no heed to me, launching instead into greater extravagances.”
“But I never dreamed that things were so serious as you represented,”
she said, a guilty flush mounting to her forehead, as she remembered
that all her lavishness had been to outshine Star. “I never thought you
were really embarrassed, or I would not have asked for so much.”
“Well, then,” he answered, in a gentler tone, “show your consideration
for me now, for you and Josephine will have to wear your old clothes
this winter. My trouble has been tided over for the present through the
kindness of a friend, but it will require great care and calculation on
my part to keep my head above board even now. I shall have to begin
cautiously, or I shall be back again in the slough of despond.”
“But I do not see how we can get along without _some_ new things,” began
Mrs. Richards, selfishly.
“You must; that is all there is about it,” returned her husband,
positively. “If you can’t go into society and wear what you have, then
you must stay at home this winter; and I do not think it would do you
any harm for once, either.”
Mrs. Richards flushed angrily. When she saw her husband in this mood,
she knew there was no turning him, and she would be obliged to submit to
his edict.
“I’m sure I do not see what can have happened to make you so penurious
all of a sudden,” she said, sullenly.
“Penurious! Oh, Ellen!”
He looked at her yearningly for a moment.
She was a handsome, distinguished-looking woman, and had been a very
fond and tender wife during the first years of their married life; but
unlimited indulgence, and constantly mingling in the fashionable world,
had made her selfish and unfeeling.
“My dear,” he went on, after a moment, “why cannot you comfort me a
little—give me a little sympathy in my trouble? My burden has been very
hard to bear alone, and the worst of it has been that I was obliged to
refuse your requests. You _know_ that I am not penurious—that I never
denied you anything that I could possibly grant you. Ellen, I wish you
could be a little more kind to me than you have been of late.”
“I do not know anything about business matters; I could give you very
little advice or comfort in that way,” she replied, coldly; and then she
left him feeling very miserable, and in anything but a comfortable frame
of mind herself, and not a little startled to know that they had been so
near the brink of ruin as he had represented.
She returned to her own room, picking up the morning paper, which lay
upon the hall table, on her way. Sitting down, she ran her eye
carelessly over its columns, while her mind was busy planning some way
to get along without her accustomed full purse, and “keep up
appearances.”
Suddenly her glance was transfixed by a paragraph which sent sharp,
prickling pains throughout her body, and every nerve quivered with
excitement as she read:
“The heirs, or nearest of kin to Sir Charles Thornton, late of
Halowell Park, Devonshire, England, will find it to their
advantage to communicate at once with Compton & Bailey, No. 54
Lincoln’s-inn-fields, London.”
Just below this advertisement was a notice of the sudden death of the
young baronet from diphtheria.
Mrs. Richards sat like one overcome by some violent shock for a few
moments after reading this account. Then springing to her feet, and
taking the paper with her, she went back in hot haste to her husband,
her cheeks crimson, her eyes glowing with agitation.
“If what I suspect should prove to be true, the dream of my life will be
realized. Sir George and Lady Richards would sound very well, indeed,”
she murmured as she went.
Her husband looked up as she entered, and she was startled as she
noticed how pale and care-worn his face had become; but she was too
eager to communicate her news to pay much heed to it.
“George,” she said, eagerly, “read this!”
She laid the paper before him as she spoke, and pointed to the paragraph
which had excited her so.
“Well, I have read it, but I do not understand it; I do not know
anything about Sir Charles Thornton,” he returned, indifferently.
“What are you thinking of, George Richards!” cried his wife,
impatiently. “_My mother_ was half-sister to Sir Charles Thornton’s
mother. Sir Charles had no family; there are no other relatives to be
found on either side, it seems, or his lawyers would not have advertised
thus, and I believe that _I_ am ‘the nearest of kin.’”
“Nonsense, Ellen! Don’t get such a wild idea as that into your head, for
you will surely be disappointed,” Mr. Richards answered, skeptically.
“I don’t know about that. But one thing I have long known, and that is
that the Thornton branch of the family is nearly, if not quite, extinct.
It is evident that no heirs are to be found in England, or Compton &
Bailey would not have advertised in the United States papers,” she
returned, feeling more and more sure in her own mind that her first
impressions had not been at fault.
“That is a good argument, truly,” Mr. Richards said, with sudden
interest, and then began to question his wife, and to examine more
closely into the matter.
The result was that the next steamer bore a long letter to Compton &
Bailey, No. 54 Lincoln’s-inn-fields, stating Mrs. Richards’ relationship
to Sir Charles Thornton, of Halowell Park, Devonshire, together with
proofs of what they asserted.
A month passed, and they had begun to think they had been nourishing a
chimera, when, one day, there came an answer from Compton & Bailey,
saying that they had faithfully studied the chronological tables of both
sides of the Thornton family, and had arrived at the conclusion that
Mrs. Richards was undoubtedly the nearest of kin to the late Sir
Charles.
They stated that they had been advertising for a long time in English
papers, and no one had presented any claim. They had then concluded to
publish a similar notice in the American papers, and as it had met with
no other response, they would undoubtedly decide the matter in favor of
her.
However, they suggested that she come to London at once, as they could
conclude better what to do after a personal interview.
“If it should prove a ‘wild-goose chase,’ as I fear it will, I can ill
afford the expense of the trip,” Mr. Richards said, when considering the
question.
But his wife was all enthusiasm, as well as very sanguine regarding the
result, and it was at length decided that they should sail as soon as
practicable, and preparations were at once begun for the voyage.
Mrs. Richards merely remarked to her friends, when informing them of
their plans, that Mr. Richards was not well; they all wanted a change,
and had resolved to try what a trip across the Atlantic would do for
them. Not one word was breathed regarding her expectations, however.
“If I am successful, there will be time enough then to make it public;
if I am _not_, no one shall ever be able to crow over my
disappointment,” she said, cautiously, to her husband; although in her
own mind she had not a doubt as to the issue of the matter, while
already visions of a title and a life among the nobility of England,
presentation at court, and a marriage in high life for Josephine, were
taking shape in her head.