DECIMA'S ROMANCE.
If the fair forms crowding to the _fete_ at Deerham Hall had but known
how near that _fete_ was to being shorn of its master's presence, they
had gone less hopefully. Scarcely one of the dowagers and chaperones
bidden to it, but cast a longing eye to the heir, for their daughters'
sakes; scarcely a daughter but experienced a fluttering of the heart, as
the fond fancy presented itself that she might be singled out for the
chosen partner of Sir Edmund Hautley--for the night, at any rate;
and--perhaps--for the long night of the future. But when the clock
struck six that evening, Sir Edmund Hautley had not arrived.
Miss Hautley was in a fever--as nearly in one as it is in the nature of
a cold, single lady of fifty-eight to go, when some overwhelming
disappointment falls abruptly. According to arranged plans, Sir Edmund
was to have been at home by middle day, crossing by the night boat from
the continent. Middle day came and went; afternoon came and went;
evening came--and he had not come. Miss Hautley would have set the
telegraph to work, had she known where to set it to.
But good luck was in store for her. A train, arriving between six and
seven, brought him; and his carriage--the carriage of his late father,
which had been waiting at the station since eleven o'clock in the
morning--conveyed him home.
Very considerably astonished was Sir Edmund to find the programme which
had been carved out for the night's amusement. He did not like it; it
jarred upon his sense of propriety; and he spoke a hint of this to Miss
Hautley. It was the death of his father which had called him home; a
father with whom he had lived for the last few years of his life upon
terms of estrangement--at any rate, upon one point; was it seemly that
his inauguration should be one of gaiety? Yes, Miss Hautley decisively
answered. Their friends were not meeting to bewail Sir Rufus's death;
_that_ took place months ago; but to welcome his, Sir Edmund's, return,
and his entrance on his inheritance.
Sir Edmund--a sunny-tempered, yielding man, the very opposite in spirit
to his dead father, to his live aunt--conceded the point; doing it with
all the better grace, perhaps, that there was now no help for it. In an
hour's time the guests would be arriving. Miss Hautley inquired
curiously as to the point upon which he and Sir Rufus had been at issue;
she had never been able to learn it from Sir Rufus. Neither did it now
appear that she was likely to learn it from Sir Edmund. It was a private
matter, he said, a smile crossing his lips as he spoke; one entirely
between himself and his father, and he could not speak of it. It had
driven him abroad she believed, Miss Hautley remarked, vexed that she
was still to remain in the dark. Yes, acquiesced Sir Edmund; it had
driven him abroad and kept him there.
He was ready, and stood in his place to receive his guests; a tall man,
of some five-and-thirty years, with a handsome face and pleasant smile
upon it. He greeted his old friends cordially, those with whom he had
been intimate, and was laughing and talking with the Countess of Elmsley
when the announcement "Lady and Miss Verner" caught his ear.
It caused him to turn abruptly. Breaking off in the midst of a sentence,
he quitted the countess and went to meet those who had entered. Lady
Verner's greeting was a somewhat elaborate one, and he looked round
impatiently for Decima.
She stood in the shade behind her mother. Decima? Was _that_ Decima?
What had she done to her cheeks? They wore the crimson hectic which were
all too characteristic of Sibylla's. Sir Edmund took her hand.
"I trust you are well?"
"Quite well, thank you," was her murmured answer, drawing away the hand
which had barely touched his.
Nothing could be more quiet than the meeting, nothing more simple than
the words spoken; nothing, it may be said, more commonplace. But that
Decima was suffering from some intense agitation, there could be no
doubt; and the next moment her face had turned of that same ghastly hue
which had startled her brother Lionel when he was handing her into the
carriage. Sir Edmund continued speaking with them a few minutes, and
then was called off to receive other guests.
"Have you forgotten how to dance, Edmund?"
The question came from Miss Hautley, disturbing him as he made the
centre of a group to whom he was speaking of his Indian life.
"I don't suppose I have," he said, turning to her. "Why?"
"People are thinking so," said Miss Hautley. "The music has been
bursting out into fresh attempts this last half-hour, and impatience is
getting irrepressible. They cannot begin, Edmund, without you. Your
partner is waiting."
"My partner?" reiterated Sir Edmund. "I have asked nobody yet."
"But I have, for you. At least, I have as good as done it. Lady
Constance----"
"Oh, my dear aunt, you are very kind," he hastily interrupted, "but when
I do dance--which is of rare occurrence--I like to choose my own
partner. I must do so now."
"Well, take care, then," was the answer of Miss Hautley, not deeming it
necessary to drop her voice in the least. "The room is anxious to see
upon whom your choice will be fixed; it may be a type, they are saying,
of what another choice of yours may be."
Sir Edmund laughed good-humouredly, making a joke of the allusion. "Then
I must walk round deliberately and look out for myself--as it is said
some of our royal reigning potentates have done. Thank you for the
hint."
But, instead of walking round deliberately, Sir Edmund Hautley proceeded
direct to one point of the room, halting before Lady Verner and Decima.
He bent to the former, speaking a few words in a joking tone.
"I am bidden to fix upon a partner, Lady Verner. May it be your
daughter?"
Lady Verner looked at Decima. "She so seldom dances. I do not think you
will persuade her."
"I think I can," he softly said, bending to Decima and holding out his
arm. And Decima rose and put hers into it without a word.
"How capricious she is!" remarked Lady Verner to the Countess of
Elmsley, who was sitting next her. "If I had pressed her, she would
probably have said no--as she has done so many times."
He took his place at the head of the room, Decima by his side in her
white silk robes. Decima, with her wondrous beauty, and the hectic on
her cheeks again. Many an envious pair of eyes was cast to her. "That
dreadful old maid, Decima Verner!" was amongst the compliments launched
at her. "_She_ to usurp him! How had my Lady Verner contrived to
manoeuvre for it?"
But Sir Edmund did not appear dissatisfied with his partner, if the room
was. He paid a vast deal more attention to her than he did to the dance;
the latter he put out more than once, his head and eyes being bent,
whispering to Decima. Before the dance was over, the hectic on her
cheeks had grown deeper.
"Are you afraid of the night air?" he asked, leading her through the
conservatory to the door at its other end.
"No. It never hurts me."
He proceeded along the gravel path round to the other side of the house;
there he opened the glass doors of a room and entered. It led into
another, bright with fire.
"It is my own sitting-room," he observed. "Nobody will intrude upon us
here."
Taking up the poker, he stirred the fire into a blaze. Then he put it
down and turned to her, as she stood on the hearth-rug.
"Decima!"
It was only a simple name; but Sir Edmund's whole frame was quivering
with emotion as he spoke it. He clasped her to him with a strangely fond
gesture, and bent his face on hers.
"I left my farewell on your lips when I quitted you, Decima. I must take
my welcome from them now."
She burst into tears as she clung to him. "Sir Rufus sent for me when he
was dying," she whispered. "Edmund, he said he was sorry to have
opposed you; he said he would not if the time could come over again."
"I know it," he answered. "I have his full consent; nay, his blessing.
They are but a few words, but they were the last he ever wrote. You
shall see them, Decima: he calls you my future wife, Lady Hautley. Oh,
my darling! what a long, cruel separation it has been!"
Ay! far more long, more cruel for Decima than for him. She was feeling
it bitterly now, as the tears poured down her face. Sir Edmund placed
her in a chair. He hung over her scarcely less agitated than she was,
soothing her with all the fondness of his true heart, with the sweet
words she had once known so well. He turned to the door when she grew
calmer.
"I am going to bring Lady Verner. It is time she knew it."
Not through the garden this time, but through the open passages of the
house, lined with servants, went Sir Edmund. Lady Verner was in the seat
where they left her. He made his way to her, and held his arm out that
she might take it.
"Will you allow me to monopolise you for a few minutes?" he said. "I
have a tale to tell in which you may feel interested."
"About India?" she asked, as she rose. "I suppose you used to meet some
of my old friends there?"
"Not about India," he answered, leading her from the room. "India can
wait. About some one nearer and dearer to us than any now in India. Lady
Verner, when I asked you just now to permit me to fix upon your daughter
as a partner, I could have added for life. Will you give me Decima?"
Had Sir Edmund Hautley asked for herself, Lady Verner could scarcely
have been more astonished. He poured into her ear the explanation, the
whole tale of their old love, the inveterate opposition to it of Sir
Rufus--which had driven him abroad. It had never been made known to Lady
Verner.
"It was _that_ caused you to exile yourself!" she reiterated in her
amazement.
"It was, Lady Verner. Marry in opposition to my father, I would not--and
had I been willing to brave him, Decima never would. So I left my home;
I left Decima my father perfectly understanding that our engagement
existed still, that it only lay in abeyance until happier times. When he
was dying, he repented of his harshness and recalled his interdict: by
letter to me, personally to Decima. He died with a blessing for us both
on his lips. Jan can tell you so."
"What has Jan to do with it?" exclaimed Lady Verner.
"Sir Rufus made a confidant of Jan, and charged him with the message to
me. It was Jan who inclosed to me the few words my father was able to
trace."
"I think Jan might have imparted the secret to me," resentfully spoke
Lady Verner. "It is just like ungrateful Jan."
"Jan ungrateful?--never!" spoke Sir Edmund warmly. "There's not a truer
heart breathing than Jan's. It was not his secret, and I expect he did
not consider himself at liberty to tell even you. Decima would have
imparted it to you years ago, when I went away, but for one thing."
"What may that have been?" asked Lady Verner.
"Because we feared, she and I, that your pride would be so wounded, and
not unjustly, at my father's unreasonable opposition; that you might, in
retaliation, forbid the alliance, then and always. You see I am candid,
Lady Verner. I can afford to be so, can I not?"
"Decima ought to have told me," was all the reply given by Lady Verner.
"And Decima would have told you, at all hazards, but for my urgent
entreaties. The blame is wholly mine, Lady Verner. You must forgive me."
"In what lay the objection of Sir Rufus?" she asked.
"I honestly believe that it arose entirely from that dogged
self-will--may I be forgiven for speaking thus irreverently of my dead
father!--which was his great characteristic through life. It was I who
chose Decima, not he; and therefore my father opposed it. To Decima and
to Decima's family he could not have any possible objection--in fact, he
had not. But he liked to oppose his will to mine. I--if I know anything
of myself--am the very reverse of self-willed, and I had always yielded
to him. No question, until this, had ever arisen that was of vital
importance to my life and its happiness."
"Sir Rufus may have resented her want of fortune," remarked Lady Verner.
"I think not. He was not a covetous or a selfish man; and our revenues
are such that I can make ample settlements on my wife. No, it was the
self-will. But it is all over, and I can openly claim her. You will give
her to me, Lady Verner?"
"I suppose I must," was the reply of my lady. "But people have been
calling her an old maid."
Sir Edmund laughed. "How they will be disappointed! Some of their eyes
may be opened to-night. I shall not deem it necessary to make a secret
of our engagement now."
"You must permit me to ask one question, Sir Edmund. Have you and Decima
corresponded?"
"No. We separated for the time entirely. The engagement existing in our
own hearts alone."
"I am glad to hear it. I did _not_ think Decima would have carried on a
correspondence unknown to me."
"I am certain that she would not. And for that reason I never asked her
to do so. Until I met Decima to-night, Lady Verner, we have had no
communication with each other since I left. But I am quite sure that
neither of us has doubted the other for a single moment."
"It has been a long while to wait," mused Lady Verner, as they entered
the presence of Decima, who started up to receive them.