SIR OSWALD THINKS OF MARRIAGE.
Fortune favored Lady Hampton. Sir Oswald was so delighted with his
visitors that he insisted upon their remaining for luncheon.
"The young ladies will have time to become friends," he said; but it was
well that he did not see how contemptuously Pauline turned away at the
words. "Pauline," he continued, "Miss Rocheford will like to see the
grounds. This is her first visit to Darrell Court. Show her the
fountains and the flower-gardens."
Elinor looked up with a well-assumed expression of rapture; Pauline's
look of annoyance indicated that she obeyed greatly against her will.
Sir Oswald saw the captain looking wistfully after the two girlish
figures.
"Go," he said, with a courtly smile. "Young people like to be together.
I will entertain Lady Hampton."
Greatly relieved, the captain followed. He was so deeply and so
desperately in love that he could not endure to see Pauline Darrell
talking even to the girl by her side. He would fain have engrossed every
word, every glance of hers himself; he was madly jealous when such were
bestowed upon others.
The three walked down the broad cedar path together, the captain all
gallant attention, Miss Rocheford all sweetness, Pauline haughty as a
young barbaric queen bound by a conqueror's chains. She did not like her
companions, and did not even make a feint of being civil to them.
Meanwhile the opportunity so longed for by Lady Hampton had arrived; and
the lady seized it with alacrity. She turned to Sir Oswald with a smile.
"You amuse me," she said, "by giving yourself such an air of age. Why do
you consider yourself so old, Sir Oswald? If it were not that I feared
to flatter you, I should say that there were few young men to compare
with you."
"My dear Lady Hampton," returned the baronet, in a voice that was not
without pathos, "look at this."
He placed his thin white hand upon his white hair. Lady Hampton laughed
again.
"What does that matter? Why, many men are gray even in their youth. I
have always wondered why you seek to appear so old, Sir Oswald. I feel
sure, judging from many indications, that you cannot be sixty."
"No; but I am over fifty--and my idea is that, at fifty, one is really
old."
"Nothing of the kind!" she said, with great energy. "Some of the finest
men I have known were only in the prime of life then. If you were
seventy, you might think of speaking as you do. Sir Oswald," she asked,
abruptly, looking keenly at his face, "why have you never married?"
He smiled, but a flush darkened the fine old face.
"I was in love once," he replied, simply, "and only once. The lady was
young and fair. She loved me in return. But a few weeks before our
marriage she was suddenly taken ill and died. I have never even thought
of replacing her."
"How sad! What sort of a lady was she, Sir Oswald--this fair young love
of yours?"
"Strange to say, in face, figure, and manner she somewhat resembled your
lovely young niece, Lady Hampton. She had the same quiet, graceful
manner, the same polished grace--so different from----"
"From Miss Darrell," supplied the lady, promptly. "How that unfortunate
girl must jar upon you!"
"She does; but there are times when I have hopes of her. We are talking
like old friends now, Lady Hampton. I may tell you that I think there is
one and only one thing that can redeem my niece, and that is love. Love
works wonders sometimes, and I have hopes that it may do so in her case.
A grand master-passion such as controls the Darrells when they love at
all--that would redeem her. It would soften that fierce pride and
hauteur, it would bring her to the ordinary level of womanhood; it would
cure her of many of the fantastic ideas that seem to have taken
possession of her; it would make her--what she certainly is not now--a
gentlewoman."
"Do you think so?" queried Lady Hampton, doubtfully.
"I am sure of it. When I look at that grand face of hers, often so
defiant, I think to myself that she may be redeemed by love."
"And if this grand master-passion does not come to her--if she cares for
some one only after the ordinary fashion of women--what then?"
He threw up his hands with a gesture indicative of despair.
"Or," continued Lady Hampton--"pray pardon me for suggesting such a
thing, Sir Oswald, but people of the world, like you and myself, know
what odd things are likely at any time to happen--supposing that she
should marry some commonplace lover, after a commonplace fashion, and
that then the master-passion should find her out, what would be the fate
of Darrell Court?"
"I cannot tell," replied Sir Oswald, despairingly.
"With a person, especially a young girl, of her self-willed, original,
independent nature, one is never safe. How thankful I am that my niece
is so sweet and so womanly!"
Sir Oswald sat for some little time in silence. He looked on this fair
ancestral home of his, with its noble woods and magnificent gardens.
What indeed would become of it if it fell into the ill-disciplined hands
of an ill-disciplined girl--unless, indeed, she were subject to the
control of a wise husband?
Would Pauline ever submit to such control? Her pale, grand face rose
before him, the haughty lips, the proud, calm eyes--the man who mastered
her, who brought her mind into subjection, would indeed be a superior
being. For the first time a doubt crossed Sir Oswald's mind as to
whether she would ever recognize that superior being in Captain Langton.
He knew that there were depths in the girl's nature beyond his own
reach. It was not all pride, all defiance--there were genius, poetry,
originality, grandeur of intellect, and greatness of heart before which
the baronet knew that he stood in hopeless, helpless awe.
Lady Hampton laid her hand on his arm.
"Do not despond, old friend," she said. "I understand you. I should feel
like you. I should dread to leave the inheritance of my fathers in such
dangerous hands. But, Sir Oswald, why despond? Why not marry?"
The baronet started.
"Marry!" he repeated. "Why, I have never thought of such a thing."
"Think of it now," counseled the lady, laughingly; "you will find the
advice most excellent. Instead of tormenting yourself about an
ill-conditioned girl, who delights in defying you, you can have an
amiable, accomplished, elegant, and gentle wife to rule your household
and attend to your comfort--you might have a son of your own to succeed
you, and Darrell Court might yet remain in the hands of the Darrells."
"But, my dear Lady Hampton, where should I find such a wife? I am no
longer young--who would marry me?"
"Any sensible girl in England. Take my advice, Sir Oswald. Let us have a
Lady Darrell, and not an ill-trained girl who will delight in setting
the world at defiance. Indeed, I consider that marriage is a duty which
you owe to society and to your race."
"I have never thought of it. I have always considered myself as having,
so to speak, finished with life."
"You have made a great mistake, but it is one that fortunately can be
remedied."
Lady Hampton rose from her seat, and walked a few steps forward.
"I have put his thoughts in the right groove," she mused; "but I ought
to say a word about Elinor."
She turned to him again.
"You ask me who would marry you. Why, Sir Oswald, in England there are
hundreds of girls, well-bred, elegant, graceful, gentle, like my niece,
who would ask nothing better from fortune than a husband like yourself."
She saw her words take effect. She had turned his thoughts and ideas in
the right direction at last.
"Shall we go and look after our truants?" she asked, suavely.
And they walked together down the path where Pauline had so indignantly
gathered the broken lily. As though unconsciously, Lady Hampton began to
speak of her niece.
"I have adopted Elinor entirely," she said--"indeed there was no other
course for me to pursue. Her mother was my youngest sister; she has
been dead many years. Elinor has been living with her father, but he has
just secured a government appointment abroad, and I asked him to give
his daughter to me."
"It was very kind of you," observed Sir Oswald.
"Nay, the kindness is on her part, not on mine. She is like a sunbeam in
my house. Fair, gentle, a perfect lady, she has not one idea that is not
in itself innately refined and delicate. I knew that if she went into
society at all she would soon marry."
"Is there any probability of that?" asked Sir Oswald.
"No, for by her own desire we shall live very quietly this year. She
wished to see Darrell Court and its owner--we have spoken so much of
you--but with that exception we shall go nowhere."
"I hope she is pleased with Darrell Court," said Sir Oswald.
"How could she fail to be, as well as delighted with its hospitable
master? I could read that much in her pretty face. Here they are, Sir
Oswald--Miss Darrell alone, looking very dignified--Elinor, with your
friend. Ah, she knows how to choose friends!"
They joined the group, but Miss Darrell was in one of her most dignified
moods. She had been forced to listen to a fashionable conversation
between Captain Langton and Miss Rocheford, and her indignation and
contempt had got the better of her politeness.
They all partook of luncheon together, and then the visitors departed;
not, however, until Lady Hampton had accepted from Sir Oswald an
invitation to spend a week at Darrell Court. Sir Francis and Lady Allroy
were coming--the party would be a very pleasant one; and Sir Oswald said
he would give a grand ball in the course of the week--a piece of
intelligence which delighted the captain and Miss Rocheford greatly.
Then Lady Hampton and her niece set out. Sir Oswald held Elinor's hand
rather longer than strict etiquette required.
"How like she is to my dead love!" he thought, and his adieu was more
than cordial.
As they drove home, Lady Hampton gazed at her niece with a look of
triumph.
"You have a splendid chance, Elinor," she said; "no girl ever had a
better. What do you think of Darrell Court?"
"It is a palace, aunt--a magnificent, stately palace. I have never seen
anything like it before."
"It may be yours if you play your cards well, my dear."
"How?" cried the girl. "I thought it was to be Miss Darrell's. Every one
says she is her uncle's heiress."
"People need not make too sure of it. I do not think so. With a little
management, Sir Oswald will propose to you, I am convinced."
The girl's face fell.
"But, aunt, he is so old."
"He is only just fifty, Elinor. No girl in her senses would ever call
that old. It is just the prime of life."
"I like Captain Langton so much the better," she murmured.
"I have no doubt that you do, my dear; but there must be no nonsense
about liking or disliking. Sir Oswald's income must be quite twenty
thousand per annum, and if you manage well, all that may be yours. But
you must place yourself under my directions, and do implicitly what I
tell you, if so desirable a result is to be achieved."