FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
Lord Carthew spoke as he did of his friend’s prospects and
intentions with perfect frankness and loyalty, never for one moment
suspecting the effect which his words might produce in the mind of
Stella Cranstoun.
He really believed that Hilary had the bad taste to dislike that young
lady, and he was certainly not ill-pleased by such a manifestation of
feeling on the part of his handsome friend. Not for an instant did the
suspicion cross his mind that two persons present were listening with
intense, even breathless, interest to his careless words.
“I must go up to town the first thing to-morrow morning,” he said,
presently, “to find out how Hilary is. Of course he is enormously
strong, but for that very reason he is the more likely to overestimate
his powers of recuperation. Early in the autumn he will be going out
to settle in Canada on a farm which has been left to him, and I
believe he proposes to spend some years there, so that we shall not
long have a chance of being together. He is a capital business man, as
long-headed and keen-sighted over a bargain as most Yorkshiremen are,
and I have no doubt that he will carry out his expressed
determination, and make the property pay.”
“By which time, probably, he will modify his views on the marriage
state sufficiently to permit of his mating with some honest, robust
person in his own rank of life, who will rear for him a squarely built
and solid brood of Anglo-Canadian olive-branches,” remarked Sir
Philip, still with his eyes furtively watching his daughter.
“Here is to your friend the farmer’s health and prosperity,” he added,
sipping his brown sherry with the air of a connoisseur. “A man in that
position is very wise in deferring marriage as long as possible. In
the case of the lower middle-class, too often ‘a young man married is
a man that’s marred.’”
“One must always take Anne Hathaway into consideration when one
recalls Shakespeare’s reflections on the marriage state,” observed
Lord Carthew. “A man who at eighteen marries a woman of
six-and-twenty, beneath him in rank, and of questionable character, is
hardly likely to entertain a high opinion of wedded life. Speaking for
myself, I have always looked forward with out-of-date eagerness and
interest to the day when I should bring home my bride. And I am most
anxious to see my father and mother on the subject at the present
time.”
His eyes rested lovingly upon Stella, but as he had not directly used
her name, she could hardly utter a disclaimer. The blood rushed to her
cheeks as she realized that she was being placed in a wrong position
altogether. Lord Carthew treated her, spoke to her, and alluded to
her, as though there were some compact between them; and yet, as she
had promised nothing, there was nothing to retract. If she were to
assure him again privately, after dinner, that she did not love him,
that would but be repeating what she had said to him before; he had
said that he did not expect her love, and was glad to be content as
yet with merely her liking. How could she say:
“This morning I hardly knew that I had fallen in love with your friend
at first sight, and I believed he disliked me extremely; also, the
prospect of an escape from the Chase, and from my father’s tyranny,
for both my mother and myself, seemed too good to be missed. But after
you had spoken to me, and I had more than half encouraged you, your
friend kissed me, and instantly I knew that I loved him with all my
heart, as he loved me, and that marriage with you was absolutely
impossible.”
Clearly she could not make such a statement, especially in the face of
what Lord Carthew himself had said of Hilary’s rooted aversion against
marriage, together with the significant fact of his hasty departure
from the Chase, without so much as telling her in so many words that
he loved her.
Stella was intensely miserable that evening. Every now and then she
told herself, in passionate self-reproach, that hers was the fault,
that Hilary had not loved her, had not meant to kiss her. It was
merely, as he himself had said, like a part of his dream; it was that
little gesture of hers toward him which had hastened that one quick
embrace of which he had already so plainly repented. She almost cried
aloud in humiliation at the thought, and the blushes coursed over her
cheeks under her lowered lashes so swiftly and unaccountably that poor
Lord Carthew was to be pardoned if he began to lay the dear delight to
his soul that she was thinking of him. Of what else, indeed, could she
be thinking? he asked himself, as he noted her evident abstraction,
her strange reserve, and those sudden changes of color.
When Lady Cranstoun and Stella retired to the drawing-room, the
former, settling herself upon her sofa, motioned to the young girl to
draw her low stool up beside her, and tenderly stroked her hair.
“I am so glad, my dear,” she murmured, while her gentle eyes filled
with tears, “so very, very glad. And I like him extremely. He is the
ideal son I always wished to have. I cannot tell you what a relief it
all is to my mind. He is my own relation, too. I have not felt so
happy for many, many years.”
“What do you mean, mamma dear?” stammered Stella, feeling terribly
guilty.
“Ah, my child, you know well enough. And now I will tell you
something, dear; if I have often seemed rather selfish in the way in
which I have taken care of myself, and tried to avoid excitement and
ward off attacks of illness, it has been because of my awful dread of
leaving you with _him_--your father. Heaven knows, I have been always
a poor companion for a lovely, bright, young girl, and not much
protection for you against his anger. But still, you have always felt,
have you not, that your mother was with you, that she loved you, and
sympathized with you, and suffered with you? You have never felt the
bitter loneliness of being without a friend to love you among enemies?
When I have been feeling tired, ill, and worn out, I have said to
myself, ‘I must not give way; I must not die until my Stella is
happily provided for.’ I could not die and leave you with _him_. But
now if, as Lord Carthew suggests, the marriage takes place almost
immediately--and, indeed, what is there to hinder it?--I shall have my
mind at peace, knowing that you will be safe under the protection of a
good man’s love. I can die quietly, happily, and thankfully,
remembering that.”
“Don’t, don’t talk about dying!” cried Stella, bursting into a flood
of tears, and covering Lady Cranstoun’s wasted hands with kisses. “I
could not lose you--you must not die! And--and I don’t love Lord
Carthew. I never shall. I know he is good and clever, and all that you
say, but--but I cannot marry him!”
Lady Cranstoun sat upright on her sofa, looking very white and wan.
“Don’t, darling, for my sake, be capricious any more,” she whispered.
“As to disliking him because he is a viscount instead of a farmer, as
you thought at first, that is foolish and beneath you. You are only
joking, my dear, are you not? You would not disappoint me so bitterly,
after all our talk this morning, about that voyage to the Cape, and
how I was to come and stay with you, and--and----”
The words died upon her lips. An ashen gray tint spread over her face,
and she fell back among her cushions in a fainting-fit. Her feeble
frame was not equal to the strain of the day’s excitement, culminating
in the shock of Stella’s refusal to carry out the contract to which
she seemed so willing a party in the morning, and on which Lady
Cranstoun had set her heart.
Stella overwhelmed herself with reproaches as she assisted Margaret to
restore the invalid to consciousness. The gentlemen were still in the
dining-room; they were, indeed, discussing the question of marriage
settlements in a highly amicable manner. But to Stella’s great relief,
Dr. Morland Graham returned from town just at the moment when his
patient recovered consciousness, and by his advice she was taken off
to bed, where she soon fell asleep, worn out by the fatigue and
excitement of the day.
“I want to talk to you about your dear mamma,” said Dr. Graham, in his
most benevolent professional manner, as he accompanied Miss Cranstoun
back to the drawing-room. “I don’t think even you quite realize her
extreme weakness. Her heart is in such an enfeebled state that she
must on no account be exposed to the slightest shock. She may die in a
fainting-fit similar to the one she had to-night, and the finest
medical skill in the world would not save her. She must not be
thwarted or disappointed, if her life is to be prolonged, say for a
year or two longer. May I ask whether there was any apparent reason
for her last seizure?”
“Yes,” answered Stella, after a moment’s hesitation. “We--we were
talking about an offer of marriage which I have just received.”
“Indeed! That is most interesting. May I be allowed to congratulate
you? And who is the happy man?”
“Wait, please! The man is Lord Carthew, who for some silly freak
changed names with his friend when he came here last night.”
The doctor laughed, a long, low, comfortable, and self-satisfied
laugh.
“The young gentleman did not deceive _me_,” he said, complacently. “I
know Lord Northborough well, and the family likeness between him and
his son is remarkable.”
“Apparently,” said the young lady, angrily, “_I_ was the only person
whom it was deemed necessary to deceive. In the name of Pritchard,
Lord Carthew asked me to marry him, and I told him I would think about
it. I _did_ think about it, and I decided against him, but in the mean
time he had had interviews with my father and mother in which he
appears to have presented himself in the light of an accepted suitor.
But I haven’t the slightest intention of marrying him. In fact,” she
added, vigorously, “the very idea of it makes me _hate_ him!”
“I really,” began the doctor, “can see nothing in the young
gentleman’s manners or style to justify your dislike----”
“It isn’t that!” she interrupted, eagerly. “Dr. Graham, you are a
clever man--you understand men and women. Don’t you know quite well
that it is possible to like people very much as friends, but to
_loathe_ them in the suggested capacity of husbands or wives?”
“Certainly, certainly. But in this case the match appears so
exceptionally happy--however, the subject in discussion is your
mamma’s health. You tell me you were talking over the proposed
marriage with her. I suppose that she is in favor of it?”
“She has set her heart upon it,” said Stella, with a sigh. “And as
soon as I told her my objections she fainted.”
“One thing is quite certain,” said Dr. Graham, emphatically. “If you
wish to preserve her life, you must at least affect to fall in with
her views for the present.”
“But they want to marry me off at once,” she cried, desperately, “even
before I am presented at Court!”
“Well, well!” returned the doctor, soothingly, “I shouldn’t think your
fate such a _very_ hard one, after all. The Earl of Northborough is
one of the most distinguished statesmen in England, in high favor at
Court, with a wife who brought him about a million, and Lord Carthew
is the only son. All the beautiful and well-bred girls in London have
been setting their caps at him for the past two years.”
“You don’t understand!” she cried. “These things are nothing, less
than nothing, to me. So far from coveting wealth and rank, I would
avoid them. My ideal of marriage is quite--quite different.”
She stopped short and blushed deeply.
“I cannot make you understand,” she said again, and turned away.
“I can understand two things, Miss Stella,” he answered, gravely;
“caprice on the one hand, and duty on the other.”
She turned sharply round and faced him.
“Duty!” she repeated, coldly. “I don’t understand you.”
“The daughter of Sir Philip Cranstoun and granddaughter of the Duke of
Lanark is not in a position to marry for mere caprice any person she
may happen to take a fancy to,” he said. “_Noblesse oblige._ You must
keep up the traditions of your family and marry some one in your own
rank of life. It is a duty which you owe to your family, your
training, and your parents. In your case, the duty is all the more
clearly marked out for you, as Lady Cranstoun’s health depends
entirely upon your fulfilment of her clearly expressed wishes; if you
disappoint her in her very natural and loving wish to see you happily
married to so intellectual and high-minded a nobleman as Lord Carthew,
her death may lie at your door.”
Stella rose from her chair and walked away from him toward the window.
She felt that a net was being drawn about her feet, and her former
liking for Lord Carthew turned to a resentful dislike. With her heart
throbbing in her bosom at the very thought of another man, with every
fibre of her being tingling with passionate love for him, how could
she tamely endure the suggestions that, even for her mother’s sake,
she must marry Lord Carthew? It was useless to reason with her. The
gypsy Carewe blood in her veins was burning with unreasoning passion.
She loved Hilary Pritchard, loved him with such unquestioning ardor
that she would only too gladly have left her home that night to follow
him, penniless and barefooted, throughout the world. Arguments were
wasted upon such a nature. There was no trace of the cold and proud
Douglas element in _her_ temperament; eccentric, strong-willed
Cranstoun, and wild, lawless Carewe had united to produce this
strange, half-tamed creature, with only a coating of education and
repressive training over the primeval passions, the wandering
instincts, and the marked rebellion against all constituted authority
which characterize her race.
All the gypsy in her was dominant to-night as, with flushed cheeks and
glittering eyes, she went up to her harp, and striking a few effective
chords, sat down before it, and broke into a Hungarian air, which had
greatly taken her fancy among some new music which had arrived from
town during her father’s absence. Perhaps her strange meeting with old
Sarah Carewe had put the thought of the gypsy race into her head; or
else it was that in her present excitable, rebellious, and agitated
mood, the wild Zingari music appealed to her feelings; certain it is
that she threw all the repressed intensity of her nature into the
song. She was an excellent musician, and played from memory,
suggesting the air, now wild, now plaintive, by a succession of
chords. The words, too, a lament supposed to be uttered by a dying
“Egyptian,” chimed in with her own frame of mind sufficiently well to
enable her to throw her whole soul into her voice.
Even that well-regulated person, Dr. Morland Graham, was astonished
and excited by her performance. How came the daughter of Lady
Gwendolen to possess such dramatic intensity and fire? he asked
himself, while the girl’s sweet soprano notes clove the air, and the
strange wailing pathos of her tones brought actual tears to his eyes.
Two other listeners had entered the room. Stella sang on, unheeding
them, while Lord Carthew watched her, entranced in admiration, and her
father regarded her with a heavy scowl of intense disapprobation.
The picture she made, sitting there in her slender, girlish beauty,
her cheeks pale with excitement, her eyes aglow, her dusky hair
framing her small, sensitive face, and that sweet, pathetic voice
ringing out the wild love, the longing for liberty, and the loneliness
of the dying gypsy--all these things, which filled the other two men
present with wondering admiration, irritated Sir Philip beyond
measure. How dared she sing gypsy songs in his presence? Above all,
how dared she reveal in her singing that warm southern nature which he
so strongly mistrusted, and the possession of which in his daughter he
regarded as something in the light of a disgrace?
The song ceased. The singer drooped her head, as though exhausted by
the effort, while her fingers still lingered about the strings. A
burst of applause, coming simultaneously from Lord Carthew and Dr.
Graham, caused her to start violently. She had completely forgotten
that she was not quite alone.
“I have never heard singing like yours,” the young viscount said,
coming to her side. “You made me cry, and I am not very easily moved.
It is not only your voice which is lovely, but your expression. Do you
know what you made me think of as you sat there, telling of your
longing for fresh air and freedom, and the joys of life?”
“No.”
“Of that line I told you of this morning, when Tennyson’s heroine saw
the lovers pass:
“‘“I am half sick of shadows,” said
The Lady of Shalott.’”
She looked up at him, and smiled involuntarily. He certainly
understood at least a portion of what was in her mind.
“Your daughter is a most accomplished musician, and a beautiful
singer,” Dr. Graham was saying to Sir Philip.
“I do not approve of that class of song,” Sir Philip’s rasping voice
made answer. “It is theatrical and tawdry in sentiment, and in my
opinion not a song for a gentlewoman to sing.”
Stella glanced at her father. Seeing that he appeared to be engaged in
conversation by Dr. Graham, she resolved to tell Lord Carthew that his
friend Hilary Pritchard was not in London, but lying at the inn near
the lodge gates of the Chase.
“I have something I want to say to you,” she began, speaking very
softly, lest her father might overhear her. But she was not quick
enough for the gray wolf. In an instant he had left the doctor and
joined her.
“I understand,” he said, addressing Lord Carthew with an affectation
of geniality, “that you are a good chess-player. Dr. Graham here is a
great authority on chess, and one of the best players in London. Will
you and he have a game while I go with my daughter to see how my wife
is now?”
His guests could do no less than follow his suggestion, while Stella,
her heart beating fast with apprehension, followed her father out of
the room.
As soon as the door was closed, he turned upon her harshly.
“Come to my study,” he said. “I have something to say to you.”