"FOR LOVE WILL STILL BE LORD OF ALL."
My Lady Carteret's ball was a brilliant success, and, fairest where all
were fair, Harrie Hunsden shone down all competitors. As she floated
down the long ball-room on the arm of Lord Ernest, light as a
swimming-sprite, a hundred admiring male eyes followed, and a hundred
fair patrician bosoms throbbed with bitterest envy.
"The little Hunsden is in full feather to-night," lisped George
Grosvenor, coming up with his adored Lady Louise on his arm. "There is
nothing half so beautiful in the room, with one exception. And only
look at Kingsland! Oh, he's done for, to a dead certainty!"
Sir Everard started up rather confusedly. He had been leaning against
a pillar, gazing after the divinity in the ivy crown, with his heart in
his eyes, and Lady Louise was the last person in the universe he had
been thinking of.
"We are losing our waltz, Mr. Grosvenor," she said, frigidly, "and we
are disturbing Sir Everard Kingsland. The 'Guards' Waltz' is a great
deal too delightful to be missed."
"I fancied the first waltz was to be mine, Lady Louise," Sir Everard
said, with an awful sense of guilt.
Lady Louise's blue eyes flashed fire.
"With Miss Hunsden, perhaps--certainly not with me. Come, Mr.
Grosvenor."
It was the first spiteful shaft Lady Louise had ever condescended to
launch, and she bit her lip angrily an instant after, as George whirled
her away.
"Idiot that I am," she thought, "to show him I can stoop to be
piqued--to show him I can be jealous--to show him I care for him like
this! He will get to fancy I love him next, and he--he has had neither
eyes nor ears for any one else since he saw Harrie Hunsden this
morning."
A sharp, quick pain pierced the proud breast of the earl's daughter,
for she did love him, and she knew it--as much as it was in her
lymphatic nature to love at all.
"I will never forgive him--never!" her white teeth clinched. "The
dastard--to play the devoted to me, and then desert me at the first
sight of a madcap on horseback. I will never stoop to say one civil
word to him again."
Lady Louise kept her vow. Sir Everard, penitent and remorseful, strove
to make his peace in vain.
Lord Carteret's daughter listened icily, sent barbed shafts tipped with
poison from her tongue in reply, danced with him once, and steadily
refused to dance again.
Sir Everard gave it up and went in search of Miss Hunsden, and was
accepted by that young lady for a redowa.
"I thought you would have asked me ages ago," said Harrie, with
delicious frankness. "I saw you were a good dancer, and that is more
than I can say for any other gentleman present, except Lord Ernest.
Ah, Lord Ernest can waltz! It is the height of ball-room bliss to be
his partner. But you stayed away to quarrel with Lady Louise, I
suppose?"
"I have not been quarreling with Lady Louise," replied, Sir Everard,
feeling guiltily conscious all the same.
"No? It looked like it, then. She snubs you in the most merciless
manner, and you--oh, what a penitent face you wore the last time you
approached her! I thought she was a great deal too uplifted for
flirting, but what do you call that with George Grosvenor?"
"George Grosvenor is a very old friend. Here is our redowa, Miss
Hunsden. Never mind Lady Louise."
His arm encircled her waist, and away they flew. Sir Everard could
dance as well as Lord Ernest, and quite as many admiring eyes followed
him and the bright little belle of the ball. Mr. Grosvenor pulled his
tawny mustache with inward delight.
"Handsome couple, eh, Carteret?" he said to his host; "it is an evident
case of spoons there. Well, the boy is only two-and-twenty, and at
that age we all lost our heads easily."
Two angry red spots, quite foreign to her usual complexion, burned on
Lady Louise's fair cheeks. She turned abruptly away and left the
gentlemen.
"Little Harrie is pretty enough to excuse an older man losing his
head," Lord Carteret answered; "but it would not suit Lady Kingsland's
book at all. The Hunsden is poorer than a church-mouse, and though of
one of our best old-country families, the pedigree bears no proportion
to my lady's pride. A duke's daughter, in her estimation, would be
none too good for her darling son."
Mr. Grosvenor smiled satirically.
"She is a wonderful woman--my lady--but I fancy she is matched at last.
If Kingsland sets his heart on this latest fancy, all the powers of
earth and Hades will not move him. Do you recollect that little affair
of Miss Kingsland and poor Douglas of the --th? My lady put a stop to
that, and he was shot, poor fellow, before Balaklava. But the son and
heir is quite another story. Apropos, I must ask little Mildred to
dance. _Adio_, Carteret!"
The ball whirled on--the hours went by like bright, swift flashes, and,
from the moment of the redowa, to Sir Everard Kingsland it was one
brief, intoxicating dream of delirium. My Lady Kingsland's maternal
frowns, my Lady Louise's imperial scorn--all were forgotten. She was a
madcap and a hoiden--a wild, hare-brained, fox-hunting Amazon--all that
was shocking and unwomanly, but, at the same time, all that was bright,
beautiful, entrancing, irresistible. His golden-haired ideal, with the
azure eyes and seraphic smile was forgotten, and this gray-eyed
enchantress, robed in white, crowned with ivy, dancing desperately the
whole night long, set brain and heart reeling in the mad tarantella of
love.
It was over at last. The gray and dismal dawn of the November morning
stole chilly through the curtained casements. A half-blown rose from
Miss Hunsden's bouquet bloomed in Sir Everard's button-hole, and it was
Sir Everard's blissful privilege to fold Miss Hunsden's furred mantle
around those pearly shoulders.
The bleak morning breeze blew her perfumed hair across his eyes, as she
leaned on his arm and he handed her into the carriage.
"We shall expect to see you at Hunsden Hall," the Indian officer said,
heartily. "Your father's son, Sir Everard, will ever be a most welcome
guest."
"Yes," said Harrie, coquettishly; "come and inquire how my health is
after dancing all night. Etiquette demands that much, and I'm a great
stickler for etiquette."
"Sir Everard would never have discovered it, I am certain, my dear, if
you had not told him."
"A thousand thanks! I shall only be too delighted to avail myself of
both invitations."
Sir Everard went home to Kingsland Court as he never had gone home
before. The whole world was _couleur de rose_--the bleak November
morning and the desolate high-road--sweeter, brighter than the Elysian
Fields.
How beautiful she was! how the starry eyes had flashed! how the rosy
lips had smiled! Half the men at the ball were in love with her, he
knew; and she--she had danced twice with him, all night, for once with
any one else.
It was a very silent drive. Lady Kingsland sat back among her wraps in
displeased silence; Mildred never talked much, and the young baronet
was lost in blissful ecstasy a great deal too deep for words. He could
not even see his mother was angry--he never gave one poor thought to
Lady Louise. The whole world was bounded by Harriet Hunsden.
Sybilla Silver was up and waiting. A bright fire, a cheery cup of tea,
and a smiling face greeted her ladyship.
"Really, Miss Silver," she said, languidly, "this is very thoughtful of
you. Where is my maid?"
"Asleep, my lady. Pray let me fulfill her duties this once. I hope
you enjoyed the ball?"
"I never enjoyed a ball less in my life. Pray make haste--I am in no
mood for talking."
Sybilla's swift, deft fingers disrobed the moody lady, loosened the
elaborate structure of hair, brushed it out, and all the while she sat
frowning angrily at the fire.
"There was a young lady at the hall--a Miss Hunsden," she said, at
last, breaking out in spite of herself--"and the exhibition she made
was perfectly disgraceful. Miss Silver, if you see my son before I get
up to-day, tell him I wish particularly for his company at breakfast."
"Yes, my lady," Miss Silver said, docilely; and my lady did not see the
smile that faded with the words.
She understood it perfectly. Sir Everard had broken from the maternal
apron-string, deserted the standard of Lady Louise, and gone over to
"bold, odious" Miss Hunsden.
Sybilla dutifully delivered the message the first time she met the
baronet. A groom was holding Sir Galahad, and his master was just
vaulting into the saddle. He turned away from the dark face and sweet
voice.
"It is impossible this morning," he said. "Tell Lady Kingsland I shall
meet her at dinner."
He rode away as he spoke, with the sudden consciousness that it was the
first time he and that devoted mother had ever clashed. Thinking of
her, he thought of her favorite.
"She wants to read me a tirade, I suppose, about her pet, Lady Louise,"
he said to himself. "They would badger me into marrying her if they
could. I never cared two straws for the daughter of Earl Carteret; she
is frightfully _passée_, and she's three years older than I am. I am
glad I did not commit myself to please my mother."
Sir Everard reached Hunsden Hall in time for luncheon. The old place
looked deserted and ruined. The half-pay Indian officer's poverty was
visible everywhere--in the time-worn furniture, the neglected grounds,
the empty stables, and the meager staff of old-time servants.
"Captain Hunsden is so poor that he will be glad to marry his daughter
to the first rich man who asks her. The Hunsden estate is strictly
entailed to the next male heir; he has only his pay, and she will be
left literally a beggar at his death."
His eyes flashed triumphantly at the thought. Harrie Hunsden stood in
the sunshine on the lawn, with half a score of dogs, big and little,
bouncing around her, more lovely, it seemed to the infatuated young
baronet, in her simple home-dress, than ever. No trace of yesterday's
fatiguing hunt, or last night's fatiguing dancing, was visible in that
radiant face.
But just at that instant Captain Hunsden advanced to meet him, with
Lord Ernest Strathmore by his side.
"What brings that idiot here?" Sir Everard thought. "How absurdly
early he must have ridden over!"
He turned to Miss Hunsden and uttered the polite common-place proper
for the occasion.
"I told you I never was fatigued," the young lady said, playing with
her dogs, and sublimely at her ease. "I am ready for a second hunt
to-day, and a ball to-night, and a picnic the day after. I should have
been a boy. It's perfectly absurd, my being a ridiculous girl, when I
feel as if I could lead a forlorn hope, or, like Alexander, conquer a
world. Come to luncheon."
"Conquer a world--come to luncheon? A pretty brace of subjects!" said
her father.
"Miss Hunsden is quite capable of conquering a world without having
been born anything so horrid as a boy," said Lord Ernest. "There are
bloodless conquests, wherein the conquerors of the world are conquered
themselves."
The baronet scowled. Miss Hunsden retorted saucily. She and Lord
Ernest kept up a brilliant wordy war.
He sat like a silent fool--like an imbecile, he said to himself,
glowering malignantly. He was madly in love, and he was furiously
jealous. What business had this ginger-whiskered young lordling
interloping here? And how disgustingly self-assured and at home he
was! He tried to talk to the captain, but it was a miserable failure.
It was a relief when a servant entered with the mailbag.
"The mail reaches us late," Captain Hunsden said, as he opened it. "I
like my letters with my breakfast."
"Any for me, papa?" Harriet asked.
"One--from your governess in Paris, I think--and half a dozen for me."
He glanced carelessly at the superscriptions as he laid them down. But
as he took the last he uttered a low cry; his face turned livid: he
stared at it as if it had turned into a death's-head in his hand.
"Oh, papa--"
She stopped in a sort of breathless affright.
Captain Hunsden rose up. He made no apology. He walked to a window
and tore open his letter with passionate haste.
His daughter still stood--pale, breathless.
Suddenly, with a hoarse, dreadful cry, he flung the letter from him,
staggered blindly, and fell down in a fit.
A girl's shrill scream pierced the air. She sprung forward, thrust the
letter into her bosom, knelt beside her father, and lifted his head.
His face was dark purple, the blood oozed in trickling streams from his
mouth and nostrils.
All was confusion. They bore him to his room; a servant was dispatched
in mad haste for a doctor. Harriet bent over him, white as death. The
two young men waited, pale, alarmed, confounded.
It was an hour before the doctor came--another before he left the sick
man's room. As he departed, Harriet Hunsden glided into the apartment
where the young men waited, white as a spirit.
"He is out of danger; he is asleep. Pray leave us now. To-morrow he
will be himself again."
It was quite evident that she was used to these attacks. The young men
bowed respectfully and departed.
Sir Everard was in little humor, as he went slowly and moodily
homeward, for his mother's lecture.
"There is some secret in Captain Hunsden's life," he thought, "and his
daughter shares it. Some secret, perhaps, of shame and disgrace--some
bar sinister in their shield; and, good heavens! I am mad enough to
love her--I, a Kingsland, of Kingsland, whose name and escutcheon are
without a blot! What do I know of her antecedents or his? My mother
spoke of some mystery in his past life; and there is a look of settled
gloom in his face that nothing seems able to remove. Lord Ernest
Strathmore, too--he must come to complicate matters. She is the most
glorious creature the sun shines on; and if I don't ask her to be my
wife, she will be my Lady Strathmore before the moon wanes!"