ON ST. PARTRIDGE DAY.
As he descended the stairs he encountered Nixon and a veiled lady in
black ascending. He looked at her keenly--she was tall and slender;
beyond that, through the heavy crape veil, he could make out nothing.
"Mysterious, certainly!" he thought. "I wonder who she is?" He bowed
as he passed her; she bent her head in return; then he hastened to
seek out Edith, and tell her an important visitor had arrived for Lady
Helena, and that the excursion to Eastlake Abbey would be postponed.
He was but a poor dissembler, and the girl's bright brown eyes were
sharp. She smiled as she looked and listened.
"Did you know I could tell fortunes, Sir Victor? Hold out your hand
and let me tell you the past. You have been upstairs with Lady Helena;
you have told her that Edith Darrell has consented to be your wife.
You have asked her sanction to the union, and have been naturally,
indignantly, and peremptorily refused."
He smiled, but the conscious color rose.
"I always suspected you of being an enchantress--now I know it. Can
you tell me the future as truthfully as the past?"
"In this instance I think so. 'You shall never marry a penniless
nobody, sir.' (And it is exactly Lady Helena's voice that speaks.)
'Your family is not to be disgraced by a low marriage. This girl, who
is but a sort of upper servant, hired and paid, in the family of these
common rich American people, is no mate for a Catheron of Catheron. I
refuse to listen to a word, sir--I insist upon this preposterous
affair being given up.' You expostulate--in vain. And as constant
dropping wears the most obstinate stone, so at last will her ladyship
conquer. You will come to me one day and say: 'Look here, Miss Darrell,
I'm awfully sorry, you know, but we've made a mistake--_I've_ made
a mistake. I return you your freedom--will you kindly give me back
mine? And Miss Darrell will make Sir Victor Catheron her best curtsey
and retire into the outer darkness from whence she came."
He laughed. Her imitation of his own slow, accented manner of speaking
was so perfect. Only for an instant; then he was grave, almost
reproachful.
"And you know me no better than this!" he said. "I take back my words;
you are no seeress. I love my aunt very dearly, but not all the aunts
on earth could part me from you. I would indeed be a dastard if a few
words of objection would make me resign the girl I love."
"I don't know," Miss Darrell answered coolly; "it might be better for
both of us. Oh, don't get angry, please--you know what I mean. I _am_
a nobody, as your somebodies go on this side. My Grandfather Stuart
was a peddler once, I believe; my Grandfather Darrell, a schoolmaster.
Not a very distinguished descent. My father by education and refinement
is a gentleman, but he keeps a boarding-house. And I am Miss Stuart's
paid companion and poor relation. Be wise, Sir Victor, while there is
time; be warned before it is too late. I promise not to be angry--to
even admire your common-sense. Lady Helena has been as a mother to you;
it isn't worth while offending her for me--I'm not worth it. There are
dozens of girls in England, high-born, high-bred, and twice as handsome
as I am, who will love you and marry you to-morrow. Sir Victor
Catheron, let us shake hands and part."
She held it out to him with a smile, supremely careless and uplifted.
He caught it passionately, his blue eyes afire, and covered it with
kisses.
"Not for ten thousand worlds! O Edith, how lightly you talk of parting,
of giving me up. Am I then so utterly indifferent to you? No; I will
never resign you; to call you wife is the one hope of my life. My
darling, if you knew how I love you, how empty and worthless the whole
world seems without you! But one day you will, you must--one day you
will be able no more to live without me than I without you. Don't talk
like this any more, Edith; if you knew how it hurts me you would be
more merciful, I am sure. Life can hold nothing half so bitter for me
as the loss of you."
She listened in a sort of wonder at his impassioned earnestness,
looking at him shyly, wistfully.
"You love me like this?" she said.
"A hundred times more than this. I would die for you, Edith. How empty
and theatrical it sounds, but, Heaven knows, I would."
She passed her hand through his arm and clasped the other round it,
her bright smile back.
"Don't die," she said, with that smile, and her own rare, lovely blush;
"do better--live for me. Ah, Sir Victor, I don't think it will be such
a _very_ hard thing to learn to like you!"
"My darling! And you will talk no more of parting--no more of giving
me up? You don't really wish it, Edith, do you?"
"Most certainly not. Would I have accepted you, if I did? I'll never
give you up while you care for me like this. If we ever part, the
parting shall be your doing, not mine."
"_My_ doing--_mine_?" he laughed aloud in his incredulity and
happiness. "The days of miracles are over, _belle amie_, but a summer
breeze could more easily uproot these oaks than that. And lest you
should think yourself fetterless and free, I will bind you at once."
He drew from his pocket a tiny morocco box. "See this ring, Edith:
it has been worn by women of our house for the past two centuries--the
betrothal ring of the Catherons. Let me place it on your finger, never
to be taken off until I bind you with a golden circlet stronger
still."
Her dark eyes sparkled as she looked at it. It was a solitaire diamond
of wonderful size and brilliance, like a great drop of limpid water,
set in dull red gold.
"There is some queer old tradition extant about it," he said, "to the
effect that the bride of a Catheron who does not wear it will lead a
most unhappy life and die a most unhappy death. So, my dearest, you
see how incumbent upon you it is for your own sake to wear it
religiously."
He laughed, but she lifted to his, two deep, thoughtful, dark eyes.
"Did your mother wear it, Sir Victor?"
He started, the smile died from his face, his color faded.
"My mother?" he answered; "_no_. My father married her secretly and
hastily after six weeks' courtship, and of course never thought of
the ring. 'Lead an unhappy life, die an unhappy death,'" he said,
repeating his own words; "she did both, and, to the best of my belief,
she never wore it."
"An odd coincidence, at least," said Edith, her eyes fixed on the
diamond blazing in the sunshine on her hand.
A priceless diamond on the hand of Edith Darrell, the brown hand that
two months ago had swept, and dusted, and worked unwillingly in the
shabby old house at home.
"Don't let us talk about my mother," Sir Victor said; "there is always
something so terrible to me in the memory of her death. Your life will
be very different from hers--my poor mother."
"I hope so," was the grave reply; "and in my case there will be no
jealous rival, will there? Sir Victor, do you know I should like to
visit Catheron Royals. If we have had love-making enough for one day,
suppose we walk over?"
"I shall never have love-making enough," he laughed. "I shall bore you
awfully sometimes, I have no doubt; but when the heart is full the
lips must speak. And as to walking--it is a long walk--do you think
you can?"
"As I am to become a naturalized Englishwoman, the sooner I take to
English habits the better. I shall at least make the attempt."
"And we can drive back in time for dinner. I shall be delighted to
show you the old place--your future home, where we are to spend
together so many happy years."
They set off. It was a delightful walk, that sunny day, across fields,
down fragrant green lanes, where the hedges in bloom made the air
odorous, and the birds sang in the arching branches overhead. A long,
lovely walk over that quiet high-road, where three-and-twenty years
ago, another Sir Victor Catheron had ridden away forever from the wife
he loved.
With the yellow splendor of the afternoon sunlight gilding it, its
tall trees waving, its gray turrets and towers piercing the amber air,
its ivied walls, and tall stacks of chimneys, Catheron Royals came in
view at last. The fallow deer browsed undisturbed, gaudy peacocks
strutted in the sun, a fawn lifted its shy wild eyes and fled away at
their approach. Over all, solemn Sabbath stillness.
"Welcome to Catheron Royals--welcome as its mistress, my bride, my
love," Sir Victor Catheron said.
She lifted her eyes--they were full of tears. How good he was--how
tenderly he loved her, and what a happy, grateful girl she had reason
to be. They entered the house, admitted by a very old woman, who
bobbed a curtsey and looked at them with curious eyes. Two or three
old retainers took care of the place and showed it to strangers.
Leaning on her lover's arm, Edith Darrell walked through scores of
stately rooms, immense, chill halls, picture-galleries, drawing-rooms,
and chambers. What a stupendous place it was--bigger and more imposing
by far than Powyss Place, and over twice as old. She looked at the
polished suits of armor, at battle-axes, antlers, pikes, halberds,
until her eyes ached. She paced in awe and wonder down the vast
portrait-gallery, where half a hundred dead and gone Catherons looked
at her sombrely out of their heavy frames. And one day her
picture--hers--would hang in solemn state here. The women who looked
at her from these walls lay stark and stiff in the vaults beneath
Chesholm Church, and sooner or later they would lay _her_ stark and
stiff with them, and put up a marble tablet recording her age and
virtues. She shivered a little and drew a long breath of relief as
they emerged into the bright outer day and fresh air once more.
"It's a wonderful place," she said; "a place to dream, of--a place
such as I have only met before in English books. But there is one room
among all these rooms which you have not shown me, and which I have a
morbid craving to see. You will not be angry if I ask?"
"Angry with you?" Sir Victor lifted his eyebrows in laughing surprise.
"Speak, Edith, though it were half my kingdom."
"It is--" a pause--"to see the room where your mother--Ah!" as he
shrank a little, "I beg your pardon. I should not have asked."
"Yes, yes, you should. You shall visit at once. I am a coward about
some things, I confess--this among others. Come."
They went. He took from a huge bunch he carried the key of that
long-locked room. He flung it wide, and they stood together on the
threshold.
It was all dark, the blinds closed, the curtains drawn, dark and
deserted, as it had been since that fatal night. Nothing had been
changed, absolutely nothing. There stood the baby bassinet, there
the little table on which the knife had lain, there beneath the open
window the chair in which Ethel, Lady Catheron, had slept her last
long sleep. A hush that seemed like the hush of death lay over all.
Edith stood silent and grave--not speaking. She motioned him hastily
to come away. He obeyed. Another moment, and they stood together under
the blue bright sky.
"Oh!" Edith said, under her breath, "who did it?"
"Who indeed? And yet Lady Helena knows."
His face and tone were sombre. How dare they let her lie in her
unavenged grave? A Catheron had done it beyond doubt, and to save the
Catheron name and honor the murderer had been let go.
"Lady Helena knows!" repeated Edith; "it _was_ that wicked brother
and sister, then? How cruel--how cruel!"
"It was not the sister--I believe _that_. That it must have been the
brother no doubt can exist."
"Is he living or dead?"
"Living, I believe. By Heaven! I have half a mind yet to hunt him down,
and hand him over to the hangman for the deed he has done!"
"An ancient name and family honor are wonderful things on this side of
the Atlantic, a couple of million dollars on ours. They can save the
murderer from the gallows. We won't talk about it, Sir Victor--it
makes you unhappy I see; only if ever I--if ever I," laughing and
blushing a little, "come to be mistress of that big, romantic old
house, I shall wall that room up. It will always be a haunted
chamber--a Bluebeard closet for me."
"If ever you are mistress," he repeated. "Edith, my dearest, when will
you be?"
"Who knows? Never, perhaps."
"Edith--again!"
"Well, who can tell. I may die--you may die--something may happen. I
can't realize that I ever will be. I can't think of myself as Lady
Catheron."
"Edith, I command you! Name the day."
"Now, my dear Sir Victor--"
"Dear Victor, without the prefix; let all formality end between us.
Why need we wait? You are your own mistress, I my own master; I am
desperately in love--I want to be married. I _will_ be married. There
is nothing to wait for--I _won't_ wait. Edith shall it be--this is
the last of May--shall it be the first week of July?"
"No, sir; it shall not, nor the first week of August. We don't do
things in this desperate sort of hot haste."
"But why should we delay? What is there to delay for? I shall have a
brain-fever if I am compelled to wait longer than August. Be
reasonable, Edith; don't let it be later than August."
"Now, now, now, Sir Victor Catheron, August is not to be thought of. I
shall not marry you for ages to come--not until Lady Helena Powyss
gives her full and free consent."
"Lady Helena shall give her full and free consent in a week; she could
not refuse me anything longer if she tried. Little tyrant! if you
cared for me one straw, you would not object like this."
"Yes I would. Nobody marries in this impetuous fashion. I won't hear
of August. Besides, there is my engagement with Mrs. Stuart. I have
promised to talk French and German all through the Continent for them
this summer."
"I will furnish Mrs. Stuart a substitute with every European language
at her finger-ends. Seriously, Edith, you must consider that contract
at an end--my promised wife can be no one's paid companion. Pardon me,
but you must see this, Edith."
"I see it," she answered gravely. She had her own reasons for not
wishing to accompany the Stuart family now. And after all, why should
she insist on postponing the marriage?
"You are relenting--I see it in your face," he exclaimed imploringly.
"Edith! Edith! shall it be the first week of September?"
She smiled and looked at him as she had done early this eventful
morning, when she had said "Yes!"
"As brain-fever threatens if I refuse, I suppose you must have your
way. But talk of the willfulness of women after this!"
"Then it shall be the first of September--St Partridge Day?"
"It shall be St. Partridge Day."