PAULINE'S LOVE FOR DARRELL COURT.
Miss Darrell preserved a dignified silence during dinner; but when the
servants had withdrawn, Sir Oswald, who had been charmed with his
visitors, said:
"I am delighted, Pauline, that you have secured a young lady friend. You
will be pleased with Miss Rocheford."
Pauline made no reply; and Sir Oswald, never thinking that it was
possible for one so gentle and lovely as Miss Rocheford to meet with
anything but the warmest praise, continued:
"I consider that Lady Hampton has done us all a great favor in bringing
her charming niece with her. Were you not delighted with her, Pauline?"
Miss Darrell made no haste to reply; but Sir Oswald evidently awaited an
answer.
"I do not like Miss Rocheford," she said at length; "it would be quite
useless to pretend that I do."
Miss Hastings looked up in alarm. Captain Langton leaned back in his
chair, with a smile on his lips--he always enjoyed Pauline's "scenes"
when her anger was directed against any one but himself; Sir Oswald's
brow darkened.
"Pray, Miss Darrell, may I ask why you do not like her?"
"Certainly. I do not like her for the same reason that I should not like
a diet of sugar. Miss Rocheford is very elegant and gentle, but she has
no opinions of her own; every wind sways her; she has no ideas, no force
of character. It is not possible for me to really like such a person."
"But, my dear Pauline," interposed Miss Hastings, "you should not
express such very decided opinions; you should be more reticent, more
tolerant."
"If I am not to give my opinion," said Pauline, serenely, "I should not
be asked for it."
"Pray, Miss Hastings, do not check such delightful frankness," cried Sir
Oswald, angrily, his hands trembling, his face darkening with an angry
frown.
He said no more; but the captain, who thought he saw a chance of
recommending himself to Miss Darrell's favor, observed, later on in the
evening:
"I knew you would not like our visitor, Miss Darrell. She was not of the
kind to attract you."
"Sir Oswald forced my opinion from me," she said; "but I shall not
listen to one word of disparagement of Miss Rocheford from you, Captain
Langton. You gave her great attention, you flattered her, you paid her
many compliments; and now, if you say that you dislike her, it will
simply be deceitful, and I abominate deceit."
It was plain that Pauline had greatly annoyed Sir Oswald. He liked Miss
Rocheford very much; the sweet, yielding, gentle disposition, which
Pauline had thought so monotonous, delighted him. Miss Rocheford was so
like that lost, dead love of his--so like! And for this girl, who tried
his patience every hour of the day, to find fault with her! It was too
irritating; he could not endure it. He was very cold and distant to
Pauline for some time, but the young girl was serenely unconscious of
it.
In one respect she was changing rapidly. The time had been when she had
been indifferent to Darrell Court, when she had thought with regret of
the free, happy life in the Rue d'Orme, where she could speak lightly of
the antiquity and grandeurs of the race from which she had sprung; but
all that was altered now. It could not be otherwise, considering how
romantic, how poetical, how impressionable she was, how keenly alive to
everything beautiful and noble. She was living here in the very cradle
of the race, where every tree had its legend, every stone its story; how
could she be indifferent while the annals of her house were filled with
noble retrospects? The Darrells had numbered great warriors and
statesmen among their number. Some of the noblest women in England had
been Darrells; and Pauline had learned to glory in the old stories, and
to feel her heart beat with pride as she remembered that she, too, was a
Darrell.
So, likewise, she had grown to love the Court for its picturesque
beauty, its stately magnificence, and the time came soon when almost
every tree and shrub was dear to her.
It was Pauline's nature to love deeply and passionately if she loved at
all; there was no lukewarmness about her. She was incapable of those
gentle, womanly likings that save all wear and tear of passion. She
could not love in moderation; and very soon the love of Darrell Court
became a passion with her. She sketched the mansion from twenty
different points of view, she wrote verses about it; she lavished upon
it the love which some girls lavish upon parents, brothers, sisters, and
friends.
She stood one day looking at it as the western sunbeams lighted it up
until it looked as though it were bathed in gold. The stately towers and
turrets, the flower-wreathed balconies, the grand arched windows, the
Gothic porch, all made up a magnificent picture; the fountains were
playing in the sunlit air, the birds singing in the stately trees. She
turned to Miss Hastings, and the governess saw tears standing warm and
bright in the girl's eyes.
"How beautiful it is!" she said. "I cannot tell you--I have no words to
tell you--how I love my home."
The heart of the gentle lady contracted with sudden fear.
"It is very beautiful," she said; "but, Pauline, do not love it too
much; remember how very uncertain everything is."
"There can be nothing uncertain about my inheritance," returned the
girl. "I am a Darrell--the only Darrell left to inherit it. And, oh!
Miss Hastings, how I love it! But it is not for its wealth that I love
it; it is my heart that is bound to it. I love it as I can fancy a
husband loves his wife, a mother her child. It is everything to me."
"Still," said Miss Hastings, "I would not love it too well; everything
is so uncertain."
"But not that," replied Pauline, quickly. "My uncle would never dare to
be so unjust as to leave Darrell Court to any one but a Darrell. I am
not in the least afraid--not in the least."