It was in Italy, two months later, that a letter came to the happy
bride, reminding her of her promise to go to Lord Stuart’s London house
in May.
“My sister has fallen in love with my description of you, Mrs. de
Vere, and as she already knows your gifted husband through his clever
books, she is most anxious to meet you both, and prides herself on the
opportunity of presenting in society this year an author and a beauty.
You will not have the heart to disappoint her, I know, so promise us
that you will come by the middle of May,” he wrote; and Thea looked
questioningly at her husband.
“Shall we go?”
“I thought, my darling, that you had already promised Lord Stuart?”
“So I did--but”--with a swift, passionate glance under the long fringe
of her thick lashes--“we have been so happy alone together. Will it be
so when we go to London? Will society be as pleasant as this?”
She glanced about her at their pretty private parlor, where they had
spent so many happy evenings together, “the world forgetting, by the
world forgot,” then she flung her white arms about his neck and gave
him an impulsive kiss.
Norman caught her to his breast in a passionate embrace.
“Oh, my little love, how happy you make me!” he whispered in the deep
tones of strong emotion; and for a little while Lord Stuart’s letter
was quite forgotten in the love-making that ensued.
When the subject came up again, they decided to accept the invitation.
“I dare say you will enjoy it very much. Beautiful young women always
do,” Norman said, smiling. “You will have a chance to air your new
Paris dresses that have never been worn yet; and, _chère petite_, you
will need a maid.”
“Oh, dear, no; that will be quite unnecessary,” she protested; but
her husband gently but firmly overruled the objections she had always
raised to a maid.
“We will set about securing one at once,” he said; and Thea gave way
gracefully. Of course he knew best.
A clever, elderly woman was secured, English instead of French, for
Norman had always detested French maids since the days of Finette Du
Val. With something like a sigh for the past happy days, Thea turned
her face to the future, and in a few more days found herself clinging
bashfully to her husband’s arm and receiving the cordial greetings of
Lord Stuart and his widowed sister in their beautiful home.
She had looked forward with eager interest to the meeting with Lord
Stuart’s sister, who had been romantic enough to mourn her dead husband
for eighteen years. To the young bride who loved her husband with
passionate devotion such constancy appeared most charming. She was
quite sure that she should do the same if she were to lose her dear
Norman, if indeed she did not die outright of grief.
Poor Thea, poor, happy, loving child! it seemed to her so easy to die
if bereft of that which made life worth living. She did not realize the
bitter contrasts of life:
“We pray for death,
But death comes not at will.”
She had been so much interested in Lord Stuart’s description of his
sister that it did not seem strange to her that she thrilled and
trembled when she stood at last in Lady Edith’s presence, and felt the
touch of her soft, white hand, and heard her low, sweet voice speaking
to her in the kindest accents, as if she quite understood the pretty
girlish shyness of her guest.
Thea gained courage from those gentle tones and looked up at Lady Edith.
She saw a woman of medium height and size, exquisitely formed, and
with such a lovely, pensive face that it seemed to beguile the young
girl’s heart from her breast. Dark-blue eyes, shining chestnut braids,
and delicate, high-bred features combined to make the young widow
rarely lovely still, though past the prime of youth. Her dress was some
soft shining arrangement of black and white, showing that she still
wore mourning in a slight degree for her loved and lost. This lovely,
winning woman welcomed Thea with a sweet cordiality that made them
friends at once.
When the husband and wife had gone to their rooms to dress for dinner,
Lady Edith turned to her brother with tears in her lovely eyes.
“How beautiful she is!” she cried. “I am in love with her already. Do
you know, brother, that she reminds me strongly of my poor dead Arthur?”
“Is it that?” he exclaimed. “Why, now I know what it is that drew me to
Thea de Vere from the first. She has a look of poor Arthur.”
“The same bright smile, and an indefinable something about her whole
face and manner,” sighed Lady Edith. She remained quite silent a few
moments, then murmured, in a musing tone: “My little darling, if she
had lived, would have looked like this young girl--the same blue eyes
and dazzling golden curls.”
Meanwhile, Norman de Vere was saying to his fair young bride:
“It will not be necessary, my darling, to confide to these English
people the story of your past--that is, of the strange way in which you
came into my guardianship.”
“Oh, Norman, are you ashamed of the mystery that surrounds my birth?”
she cried, startled.
“Not in the least, my darling wife; but English people of rank lay so
much stress upon birth and position, and it would seem strange to them
that I could never trace your family. I have told our host that you
were my ward from early childhood, and that is enough for any one to
know,” said Norman, who had a pride equal to any one’s, only he did not
realize it.
Thea had just come in to him from the hands of her maid. She looked
lovely in a dinner-dress of blue and white, with ornaments of pearl.
“Sweetheart, how lovely you are, and how young and childish you appear
by my side! I hope people will not begin to call you an old man’s
darling,” Norman said, drawing her within the circle of his arm before
the tall mirror and gazing critically upon the reflection therein--the
handsome man in manhood’s early prime, and the lovely golden-haired
girl whose head just reached his broad shoulder.
“You shall not call yourself old,” she cried, caressing him in
her pretty, tender fashion. “How do you like my Worth dress?” she
continued, gayly.
“It is adorable!” he replied; but he was looking at her face, not the
dainty creation of blue and white.
“Adorable is not exactly the term to apply to a dress, but I will
excuse you, as I know it is becoming, and perhaps that makes me
adorable.” Thea laughed saucily; then she pushed her white hand through
his arm and drew him to the door.
“Let us go down to the drawing-room,” she said. “I am anxious to meet
that sweet lady again. I have fallen in love with her at sight.”
“She is very charming, certainly,” he agreed. Then he laughed. “But I
suppose I must not fall in love with her, too, or my little wife will
be jealous.”
“Jealous of sweet Lady Edith--no, never!” the girl cried, impulsively,
her young heart thrilling with affection for the sweet, pensive-faced
woman who but a few hours before had been a stranger to her save in
name. But to Thea it almost seemed as if she had known Lady Edith years
and years.