ARONDELLE'S CONSOLATION.
On the next day, at the appointed hour, Salome came down to the
drawing-room dressed for her ride.
She wore a rich habit of dark blue summer-cloth, fastened with small
gold buttons, fine, tiny white linen cuffs and collar, dark blue gloves,
dark blue velvet hat with a short, white ostrich plume secured by a small
gold butterfly, and she carried in her hand a slender ivory-handled
riding-whip, set with a sapphire. Her dress was neat, elegant, and
appropriate; and her face was for the moment radiant and beautiful
from inward joy.
In due time, the young marquis presented himself, and the lovers went
forth for their ride.
It is not necessary to linger over this courtship, in which "the course
of true love" ran so smooth as to seem monotonous to all but the lovers
themselves.
The ride was followed by the small dinner party. And after that the young
marquis became a daily visitor at Elmthorpe House, where he was ever
received with fatherly affection by Sir Lemuel, and with subdued delight
by Salome.
The lovers had come to a mutual understanding for days before the marquis
made a formal proposal for Miss Levison's hand.
But it happened one evening that they found themselves alone in the
drawing-room. They were seated at a table, loaded with books of
engravings, photographs, and so forth.
Salome was turning over the pages of Dore's Milton.
"Close the volume, now, Miss Levison," Lord Arondelle said at length,
uttering the formal words with a tone and look of such reverential
tenderness as to seem a caress.
Salome shut the book, and looked up to read the open volume of his
eloquent face; but her eyes instantly sank beneath the gaze of ardent
passion that met them.
"Listen to me, Salome, my beloved; for I love you, and have loved you
ever since the first moment when I met the beautiful spirit beaming
through your sweet eyes--'Sweetest eyes were ever seen!' Dear eyes! look
on me!"
Salome, for all her profound and ardent affections, was still a very shy
maiden. She wished to raise her eyes to his; she wished to pour her heart
out to him; to let him have the comfort of knowing how perfectly she
loved him, how utterly she was his own. But she could not look at him,
she could not speak to him as yet. Her dark eyelashes drooped to her
crimson cheeks.
"My beloved, do you hear me? I am telling you how I have loved you since
I first met your heavenly eyes. This is no lover's rhapsody, my own, for
your eyes are heavenly in their spiritual beauty. And they have haunted
me, Salome, like the eyes of a guardian angel ever since they first
looked upon me. Daily they would have drawn me to your side but for my
wrecked and ruined state," he said, with a half suppressed sigh.
His look, his tone, and, more than all, his allusion to the calamity of
his house, reached her soul, and broke the spell of reserve by which she
was bound.
"Oh, do not say that you are ruined!" she cried, in a voice thrilled and
thrilling with profound emotion. "Do not think that you are ruined.
_You_ could _never_ be ruined. _Nothing_ could ruin
_you_. It is not in the power of fate to ruin a man like
YOU. And if you loved me when you first met my eyes it was
because you read in them the soul that was created yours! And if these
eyes have haunted you ever since it was because this soul has been always
longing, yearning, aspiring towards yours!" And she dropped her face in
her hands and wept for pure joy.
"Salome, Salome, can this be indeed true? Can I have been so blessed? Am
I indeed so happy? Then is this abundant compensation for all that I have
lost in this world! Heavenly consolation for all I have suffered on
earth! Speak again, oh, my dearest! Tell me once more, for I can scarcely
realize my happiness! Speak again, beloved, for your words are life to
me!" he exclaimed, with profound emotion.
"Yes, I will tell you all!" she said, wiping away her joyful tears and
looking up. "I will tell you everything for it is your right! You have
made me so happy to-day! I loved you from the beginning. First, I loved
the magnanimous, self-sacrificing man who, at the age of twenty-one
years, with a brilliant future before him, could renounce all his
prospects to give peace to his father's latter years. I loved you then,
Lord Arondelle, before I knew what manner of man you looked!"
"How blessed, how surely blessed I am in hearing you," he breathed, in
a low and reverent tone.
"Afterward I saw your portrait in Malcolm's Tower at Lone," she
continued, in a soft voice. "And I saw a beauty and a grandeur in the
face and form that seemed the fitting manifestation of a soul like yours.
And I loved you more than ever. My mornings were passed in the tower near
the glory of that picture. But I gazed on it so hopelessly! You were
missing, you were lost to your world! And then I was so plain, so pale,
and dark and gray-eyed. If I should ever be so fortunate as to meet you,
I thought you would never be likely to love me!"
"My consolation! You are most lovely from your spirit, and now you
_know_ that I loved you from my first meeting with you," he
breathed, in a low, earnest tone, pouring his whole soul's devotion
through the gaze that he fixed on her face.
Again her eyes drooped as she murmured:
"If I am lovely in the very least, it must be that my love for you has
made me so; for, even then, when I had only heard your story and seen
your portrait, I loved you so, that I could not think of marriage with
any other man."
"And that was the reason why you refused so many excellent offers?" he
inquired, with a smile.
"Perhaps that was the reason," she replied, lowly bending her head.
"Tell me more, my consolation! I thirst for your words; they are as the
words of life to me," he murmured, eagerly.
She continued, still speaking in a low, thrilling voice:
"At last--at last--at last--after three long years of waiting, longing,
aspiring, I met you face to face. Oh!" she exclaimed, and as she spoke
her hand for the first time went out to meet his, which closed upon it
with a close clasp, and her eyes lifted themselves to his in a full
blaze of love that seemed to blend their spirits into one.
"Oh! if in that moment you loved me, it must have been because you read
my soul, for in that moment I consecrated my life to you for acceptance
or rejection. I recorded a vow in heaven to be no man's wife unless
I could be yours; but to live unmarried so that when, in the course of
nature, my dear father should pass to the higher life and leave me Castle
Lone, I might be free to transfer it to its rightful owner."
"Ah! my beloved! you would have been capable of such an act of
renunciation as that! But I could not have accepted the sacrifice,
Salome."
"In that case I should have made a will and bequeathed it to you, and
then prayed to the Lord to take me from the earth, that you might have it
all the sooner. But let that pass. Thanks be to Heaven, there is no need
of that. It would have been sweet to die for you, but it is so much
sweeter to _live_ for you, dearest!" she said, lifting up a face
in which rosy blushes, radiant smiles, and beaming eyes were blended in
dazzling beauty.
"Oh! angel of my destiny, what can I render you for all the blessings you
have brought me?" exclaimed her lover, clasping her to his bosom in a
close embrace.
"Your love--your love! which will crown me a queen among women!" she
whispered, softly.
The morning succeeding this scene, Lord Arondelle called and asked for
a private interview with Sir Lemuel Levison.
He was invited up into the library, where he found the banker alone among
his books.
"Good morning, Arondelle. Glad to see you. Take this chair," said the old
gentleman, rising, shaking hands with his visitor, and placing a seat for
him.
The young marquis returned the hearty shake of the banker's hand, and
took the offered chair.
"Now, I suppose that you have come to tell me that you have taken up the
girl I flung at your head about a month ago?" said the banker, rubbing
his hands.
"No, nothing of the sort," replied the young marquis, effectually
declining to understand the jest of his host. "I do not remember that you
ever flung any girl at my head. I came, Sir Lemuel, to tell you that I am
so happy as to have won Miss Levison's consent to be my wife, if we have
your approbation," he added, with a bow.
"Humph! It amounts to about the same thing. Well, my dear boy, you have
my consent and blessing on two conditions."
"Name them, Sir Lemuel."
"The first is, that you can assure me on your honor that you really do
love my daughter. I would not give her to an emperor who did not love her
as she deserves to be loved," said the banker, emphatically.
"Love her!" repeated the young man, in a deep and earnest tone. "Love is
scarcely the word, nor adoration, nor worship! She is the soul of my
soul! She lives in my life, and my life is the larger, higher, holier for
her!"
"Humph! I don't understand one word of what you are talking about, but I
suppose it means that you really do love Salome. So the first condition
will be fulfilled," said the banker, with a smile.
"And the second, sir. What is the second?"
"The second is, that the marriage shall take place within a month from
this time."
"Agreed, sir. The sooner the better. The sooner I may call your lovely
daughter mine, the sooner I shall be the most blessed among men,"
exclaimed the young marquis, earnestly clapping his palm into the open
hand of the banker, and shaking it heartily.
"There! well, the second condition will be fulfilled. And now I will tell
you what I never told you in so many words before, namely, that on the
day Salome Levison becomes Marchioness of Arondelle, I will give her Lone
as a marriage portion. There, now, not a word more upon that subject. I
will send a message to my attorney to meet us here to-morrow morning,"
said the banker, rising and ringing the bell.
"You will let me thank--" began the marquis.
"No, I won't!" exclaimed the banker, cutting short the young gentleman's
acknowledgements. "Excuse me now half a minute, I want to write a line,"
he added, as he hastily scribbled off a note.
A footman entered in answer to the bell.
"Take this to the office of the Messrs. Prye, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and
wait an answer," said Sir Lemuel, handing the folded note to the man, who
bowed and retired.
"Prye must meet us here to-morrow morning to see to the marriage
settlements. And I must see to Prye! Even lawyers may be hurried if they
be well paid for making haste!" concluded the banker, rubbing his hands.
"But now go and find Salome, and tell her it is all right! She has not
got a stern father to ruffle the course of her true love, but a spooney
old fellow who spreads out his hands over your heads and says: 'Bul-less
you, my chee-ild-der-en!'"
Lord Arondelle smiled at the dry banker's imitation of the heavy
stage-father, but made no comment.
"Yes, go see Salome; and then go to the duke, your father, and acquaint
him with the result of your proposal. I take it for granted that you had
his grace's authority for making it."
"I had, sir. He told me to be guided by my own judgment."
"Well tell him all about the settlements as I have told them to you.
Agree to any amendment he may propose, for I will make it all right."
"That is allowing a very large margin, indeed. I thank you, Sir Lemuel;
but I must reflect before taking advantage of it."
"Well, well; perhaps the duke will meet my solicitor here to-morrow
morning in regard to the settlements. I consider the fact that he has
steadily declined every invitation I have sent him to come to us on any
occasion. Still, I hope he may be induced to honor us with his presence
to-morrow in the interest of these marriage settlements, and to remain
and dine with us in honor of this betrothal," said the banker.
"I hope you will kindly continue to excuse my father, sir. His age, his
infirmities, his failing mind and body, will, I trust, be his sufficient
apologies," said the young marquis gravely.
"You think that he will not come, then!"
"I fear that he cannot."
"I'm sorry for that. However, tell him all that I have told you, and
agree to any alterations in the settlements that he may see fit to
suggest. There! Go to Salome! Go to Salome! I must be off to the House,"
said the conscientious M.P. rising, and putting an end to the interview.
It was subsequently arranged that the marriage should be celebrated at
Castle Lone on that day three weeks.
Two weeks out of the three, Sir Lemuel Levison remained in town to give
his daughter and her chaperon an opportunity of getting up as good a
trousseau as could be prepared in so short a time. But jewellers,
milliners, and dressmakers may be hurried as well as lawyers, when they
are well paid to make haste. And so, in two weeks, the banker's heiress,
the future Marchioness of Arondelle and Duchess of Hereward, had a
trousseau as magnificent and splendid as if it had been in preparation
for two years. When it was all carefully packed and sent down to Lone,
Sir Lemuel Levison and his household prepared to follow.
On the day before their departure a very curious thing happened.
Sir Lemuel was waiting in his library, when a footman entered and laid a
card before him. It was not a visiting card, but a business card. And it
bore the name of a firm:
Dazzle and Sparkle, jewellers, Number Blank, Bond street.
"What is the meaning of this?" inquired the banker.
"If you please, sir, the person who brought it directed me to say, that
he craves to speak with you on the most important business," answered the
man.
"Important to himself most likely, and not in the least so to me. Well,
show him up," said Sir Lemuel.
The servant withdrew and, after a few moments, reappeared and announced:
"Mr. Dazzle, of Dazzle and Sparkle, Bond street."
A little, round-bodied, bald-headed man entered the library.
Sir Lemuel Levison received him with some surprise, but with much
politeness.
"I have come, sir, on a little business," began the visitor, who
forthwith proceeded and explained his business at length.
It seemed that the imbecile Duke of Hereward, being well pleased with his
son's marriage, and imagining himself still to be the master of Lone and
of a princely revenue, went to Messrs. Dazzle and Sparkle, and ordered
a splendid set of diamonds for his prospective daughter-in-law.
The firm, who, as well as all the world of London, had heard of the
forthcoming marriage between the son of the pauper duke and the daughter
of the wealthy banker, gravely accepted the order, pondered over it, and
finally determined to lay the whole matter before the banker himself.
"You have acted with much discretion, Mr. Dazzle. Fill the duke's order,
and hold me responsible for the amount. And say nothing of the affair,"
was the banker's answer to the tradesman, who bowed and left the room.
The next morning Sir Lemuel Levison, his daughter, her chaperon, and
their household, went down to Castle Lone.
Active preparations were at once commenced for the wedding, which was to
take place at Lone on the Tuesday of the following week.
The first thing that Salome did on reaching the castle was to have the
portrait of the Marquis of Arondelle brought down from the tower and
mounted in state between the two lofty front windows of her favorite
sitting-room.
Among the servants at Lone, none received the bride elect with more
effusive love than the old housekeeper, Girzie Ross.
"Eh, me leddy! Heaven, sent ye to redeem Lone. My benison on ye, me
leddy! and my ban on yon hizzie, wha hae been makin' sic' an ado, ever
sin the report o' your betrothal has been noised about!" said the dame.
"But who are you talking about, my dear Mrs. Ross?" inquired Salome.
"Ou just that handsom hizzie, Rosy Cameron, wha will hae it that she, her
vera sel', is troth-plighted to our young laird--the jaud!" replied the
housekeeper.
"But, Mrs. Ross, surely that must be a mistake of yours. No girl could
have the impertinence to say such a false thing of Lord Arondelle,"
exclaimed Salome, in disgust and abhorrence of the very idea presented.
"Indeed, then, my young lady, _she_ ha' the impertinence to say just
that thing--not in a whisper and in a corner, but loudly in the vera
castle court, to whilk she cam yestreen, sae noisily that I was fain to
threaten her wi' the constable before I could get shet o' her," said the
housekeeper nodding her head.
"What can the girl mean by it? What excuse can she possibly have to
justify such a mad charge?" inquired Salome, in a painful anxiety that
she could neither conquer nor yet explain to herself. She did not doubt
the honor of her promised husband. She would have died rather than doubt
him. Why, then, should this sudden anguish wring her heart. "What excuse
can she have, Mrs. Ross?" repeated Salome.
"Eh, me leddy, wha kens? Boys will be boys. And whiles the best o' them
will be wild where a bonny lassie is concerned. No that's I'm saying sic
a thing anent our young laird. But ye ken he used to be unco fond o' the
sport o' deer stalking up by Ben Lone, where this handsome hizzie, Rose
Cameron, bides wi' her owld feyther. And I e'en think the young laird,
may whiles, hae putten a speak on the lass. Nae mair nor less than just
that," said the housekeeper as she left the room to look after some
important household work.
A few minutes after her exit, Sir Lemuel Levison entered.
Finding his daughter almost in tears, he naturally inquired:
"What on earth is the matter with you, my child?"
"Nothing, papa! At least nothing that should trouble me!"
"But what is it?"
"Well then, papa, dear, here has been a foolish girl--_very_
foolish, I think she must be, going about, intruding even into the
Castle, and telling all that will listen to her, that _she_ is
betrothed to the Marquis of Arondelle."
"Oh! Just as I feared!" muttered the banker, in a tone that instantly
riveted the attention of his daughter.
"_What_ did you fear, my father?" she inquired, fixing her eyes upon
his face.
The banker hesitated.
His daughter repeated her question:
"_What_ did you fear, my dear father?"
"Why, just what has happened, my love!" impatiently answered the banker.
"That this silly report would reach your ears and give you uneasiness. It
_has_ reached you; but do not, I beseech you, let it trouble you!"
"There is no truth in it of course, papa?" said Salome, in a tone of
entreaty.
"No, no, at least none that need concern you. Lord bless my soul, girl,
young men will be young men! Arondelle is now about twenty-five years of
age. And he was not brought up in a convent, as you were. He has lived
for a quarter of a century in the world! Surely, you do not expect that
a young man should live as long as that without ever admiring a pretty
face, and even telling its owner so, do you?"
"I never once thought about that, at all, papa," said Salome, in a
mournful tone.
"No, I'll warrant you didn't! Well, don't think anything more of it now.
And don't expect too much of human nature. In this year of grace there
are no saints left alive! Believe that, and accept it, my girl!"