BURYING THE HATCHET
Lord and Lady Dunforth called again at the Langham the next morning, but
found they had been forestalled by numerous other callers, whom Brownie
was entertaining in the most charming manner.
She received his lordship with proud but respectful dignity, which,
while it grieved him, yet it also excited his admiration that she should
thus resent the injury he had done her.
One by one the other visitors departed, until at length they were left
alone with the young couple.
After a few moments spent in a pleasant chat, Lady Dunforth whispered a
few words in Brownie’s ear.
She smiled and nodded compliance, then, turning with inimitable tact to
her husband, said:
“Adrian, Lady Dunforth is anxious to inspect the wedding wardrobe and
gifts; will you attend her while I entertain his lordship? If you need
any explanations Milly can make them.”
Adrian saw the point of all this, and rising he gave his arm to his
grandmother, and conducted her from the room.
Brownie knew that this moment must come, and was grateful to the
countess for so delicately opening the way for those explanations which
were needful.
Lord Dunforth was glad to be left alone with her, yet man of the world
though he was, he felt a terrible awkwardness stealing over him, and he
scarcely knew how to break the ice.
It was a trying moment for the proud peer, but taking advantage of a
pause in the conversation, he bent toward her, took one of her little
soft hands in his, and asked, in eager, trembling tones:
“Can the child of my Meta’s care and love forgive an old man’s folly?”
Brownie’s lovely face crimsoned instantly, and the tears sprang unbidden
to her eyes.
She had not expected any such humble apology from him. She thought he
would be stately and dignified, and would yield his haughty spirit only
so far as he could do so gracefully; and she had resolved to show him
that a Douglas could be as proud as he; so she was wholly unprepared for
anything so subdued as this.
“I have wronged you,” he went on, studying the beautiful face, “by
judging you, without knowing you, and I have wronged Adrian in thinking
that, with him, caste could ever outweigh love. He is a grand and noble
boy—all my hopes are centered in him, and I could not endure the thought
that his heart and his sympathy for any one’s misfortune should have run
away with his judgment. But I should not have been so hasty—I should
have allowed him to bring you to us, that we might have been convinced
of the worthiness of his choice. And I cannot tell you, dear, how proud
and happy, how relieved I am to find his selection a most fitting one
after all.”
Ah! then he was only satisfied with her now because he had discovered
that she was heiress to Sir Edgar Douglas, and a descendant of the one
whom he had loved in his youth; not because of her own worthiness to be
his wife, and her ability to make him happy. It was the pride of blood
after all. Thus she interpreted his words.
She released her hand, and lifting her head proudly, said, with hauteur:
“Pardon me, my lord, if I cannot agree with you in thinking that I shall
make Adrian any better wife for having noble blood in my veins. I have
been brought up under the shadow of democratic institutions, and I
believe that true worth should in every instance be considered before
birth or position. My being a Douglas does not change in the least
degree my character.”
She looked like a little queen as she proudly faced him, and fearlessly
advanced her independent principles.
But the spirit was on him to try her still further, and he asked:
“But, my dear, if you should live to see a son grow to man’s estate,
would you be willing for him to seek out a wife among the mechanics or
peasantry?”
It was a hard question, and Brownie thought a moment before replying.
Then she said:
“Sir, I believe that the worldly condition of a person makes no
difference with the heart or intellect, only so far as it contributes
advantages of education and culture. If my son should choose a wife
whose heart was pure and true, whose mind had been cultivated, and whose
nature was refined, so that she was his equal morally and
intellectually, for otherwise they could never be congenial, I should
never dare take the responsibility of destroying the happiness of a
lifetime, were she titled lady or peasant born.”
“What a noble-hearted little woman you are!” his lordship exclaimed, in
admiration, and inspired with something of her own enthusiasm.
Then he added, with a little smile of amusement, while there was an
expression of earnest entreaty in his eyes:
“My dear, I think if I had another grandson I should never dare judge
his bride until I knew her personally. I like and admire you just as you
are, independent of your being a Douglas. Now shall we shake hands and
bury the hatchet?”
She looked up, and their eyes met.
She regarded him earnestly for a minute.
With a witching smile and gesture, she laid both her hands in his
outstretched palm, and said, archly:
“I had made up my mind to forgive you for Adrian’s sake, but I begin to
think I shall have to for your own, and,” she added, in a lower tone,
the tears springing to her eyes, “because auntie loved you so well.”
“Did she?” he said, eagerly; “tell me about her.”
He led her to a seat, and Brownie, never weary of talking of her dear
one who was gone, rehearsed all the sad story which Miss Mehetabel had
told her on that last day of her life.
When she had told him about the note which Miss Capel had undertaken to
deliver his lordship became greatly excited:
“Ah, the treacherous girl! I almost suspected it when it was too late,
and but for her I should never have known the sorrow and bitterness I
have suffered all these weary years. Oh, Meta, Meta,” he cried, with
almost a sob, “it was too hard when I loved you so! It has been a
terrible wound, and one that has never healed. I cannot even hear her
name spoken without its ringing forth from memory’s chords notes of
anguish. I would not wrong the living,” he hastened to say, “for I honor
my wife as a pure and noble woman, and she has ever been a kind and
gentle helpmeet, but that love was the love of a lifetime, which nothing
could kill. And she died, you say,” he continued, wiping the tears which
he could not stay, “only last September, true to the last. Oh, fool and
blind that I was, not to have crushed my pride and forced my way into
her presence! But,” and he started fiercely to his feet and began pacing
the room, “I will have it out even at this late day with that
traitoress, Lady Randal. I will know what was in that note yet, and she
shall know that her perfidy is discovered.”
“My lord, I have the note,” interrupted Brownie, and she told him how
she had gained possession of it, thinking it no wrong to take it under
the circumstances.
“It was perfectly justifiable, and will you give it to me?” he begged.
“Yes, I will get it for you before you go.”
Then he asked her about the mystery of the jewels, and how Isabel
Coolidge happened to have them, and she had to repeat all the
circumstances regarding them.
“You shall have them again,” he cried. “I can prove that every one
belongs to you. That girl shall give them up, and I only hope that Sir
Charles will have his eyes opened before it is too late.”
Brownie smiled as she thought how many had expressed that wish, and just
at that moment Adrian appeared with Lady Dunforth.
“Have you two made it up?” the former asked, laughing, as he saw how
confidential they had become.
“Yes; and I’ve promised not to interfere with my next grandson’s
matrimonial inclinations in any way,” Lord Dunforth replied, with a sly
glance at Brownie, as he shook the young man’s hand.
He laughed, then asked:
“Did she tell you how they made her a prisoner down at West Malling, and
of her discoveries there?”
“No.”
So Adrian related that circumstance himself, and explained how, when he
found her cold and desolate the next morning, with not a friend to whom
to flee, and feeling it impossible to return to Lady Ruxley, he had
proposed on the spot to take her away in the only way in which he could
do so honorably—by making her his wife, and so they had come immediately
to London and were married.
“Right, my boy, and I honor you for it. May Heaven forgive me for
seeking to destroy your happiness in the way I did,” returned his
lordship, heartily, while his horror and indignation against Lady Randal
for her conduct regarding her younger son was boundless.
Harmony being fully restored, Lord and Lady Dunforth spent the day and
dined with the young couple, and parted from them in the evening upon
the best of terms, insisting that they must sojourn at least a part of
every year at Castle Dunforth.
“You know that it is your home, Adrian—yours and—may I call you Meta?”
his lordship asked, suddenly turning to Brownie, and speaking the name
with infinite tenderness.
“Yes, do; I should like it,” she replied, with a smile.
“Then, my children, you will come home soon,” he added.
“Yes, sir, we will,” and Adrian shook his hand heartily.