Love Works Wonders Part 15

BREACH BETWEEN UNCLE AND NIECE.

A few days later the tranquillity of Darrell Court was at an end. The invited guests were expected, and Sir Oswald had determined to do them all honor. The state-apartments, which had not been used during his tenure, were all thrown open; the superb ball-room, once the pride of the county, was redecorated; the long, empty corridors and suites of apartments reserved for visitors, were once more full of life. Miss Hastings was the presiding genius; Pauline Darrell took far less interest in the preparations.

"I am glad," she said, one morning, "that I am to see your 'world,' Sir Oswald. You despise mine; I shall be anxious to see what yours is like."

The baronet answered her testily:

"I do not quite understand your remarks about 'worlds.' Surely we live under the same conditions."

"Not in the same world of people," she opposed; "and I am anxious to see what yours is like."

"What do you expect to find in what you are pleased to call my world, Pauline?" he asked, angrily.

"Little truth, and plenty of affectation; little honor, and plenty of polish; little honesty, and very high-sounding words; little sincerity, and plenty of deceit."

"By what right do you sit in judgment?" he demanded.

"None at all," replied Pauline; "but as people are always speaking ill of the dear, honest world in which I have lived, I may surely be permitted to criticise the world that is outside it."

Sir Oswald turned away angrily; and Miss Hastings sighed over the girl's willfulness.

"Why do you talk to Sir Oswald in a fashion that always irritates him?"

she remonstrated.

"We live in a free country, and have each of us freedom of speech."

"I am afraid the day will come when you will pay a sad price for yours."

But Pauline Darrell only laughed. Such fears never affected her; she would sooner have expected to see the heavens fall at her feet than that Sir Oswald should not leave Darrell Court to her--his niece, a Darrell, with the Darrell face and the Darrell figure, the true, proud features of the race. He would never dare to do otherwise, she thought, and she would not condescend to change either her thought or speech to please him.

"The Darrells do not know fear," she would say; "there never yet was an example of a Darrell being frightened into anything."

So the breach between the uncle and the niece grew wider every day. He could not understand her; the grand, untrained, undisciplined, poetical nature was beyond him--he could neither reach its heights nor fathom its depths. There were times when he thought that, despite her outward coldness and pride, there was within a soul of fire, when he dimly understood the magnificence of the character he could not read, when he suspected there might be some souls that could not be narrowed or forced into a common groove. Nevertheless he feared her; he was afraid to trust, not the honor, but the fame of his race to her.

"She is capable of anything," he would repeat to himself again and again. "She would fling the Darrell revenues to the wind; she would transform Darrell Court into one huge observatory, if astronomy pleased her--into one huge laboratory, if she gave herself to chemistry. One thing is perfectly clear to me--she can never be my heiress until she is safely married."

And, after great deliberation--after listening to all his heart's pleading in favor of her grace, her beauty, her royal generosity of character, the claim of her name and her truth--he came to the decision that if she would marry Captain Langton, whom he loved perhaps better than any one else in the world, he would at once make his will, adopt her, and leave her heiress of all that he had in the world.

One morning the captain confided in him, telling him how dearly he loved his beautiful niece, and then Sir Oswald revealed his intentions.

"You understand, Aubrey," he said--"the girl is magnificently beautiful--she is a true Darrell; but I am frightened about her. She is not like other girls; she is wanting in tact, in knowledge of the world, and both are essential. I hope you will win her. I shall die content if I leave Darrell Court in your hands, and if you are her husband. I could not pa.s.s her over to make you my heir; but if you can persuade her to marry you, you can take the name of Darrell, and you can guide and direct her. What do you say, Aubrey?"

"What do I say?" stammered the captain. "I say this--that I love her so dearly that I would marry her if she had not a farthing. I love her so that language cannot express the depth of my affection for her."

The captain was for a few minutes quite overcome--he had been so long dunned for money, so hardly pressed, so desperate, that the chance of twenty thousand a year and Darrell Court was almost too much for him.

His brow grew damp, and his lips pale. All this might be his own if he could but win the consent of this girl. Yet he feared her; the proud, n.o.ble face, the grand, dark eyes rose before him, and seemed to rebuke him for his presumptuous hope. How was he to win her? Flattery, sweet, soft words would never do it. One scornful look from her sent his ideas "flying right and left."

"If she were only like other girls," he thought, "I could make her my wife in a few weeks."

Then he took heart of grace. Had he not been celebrated for his good fortune among the fair s.e.x? Had he not always found his handsome person, his low, tender voice, his pleasing manner irresistible? Who was this proud, dark-eyed girl that she should measure the depths of his heart and soul, and find them wanting? Surely he must be superior to the artists in shabby coats by whom she had been surrounded. And yet he feared as much as he hoped.

"She has such a way of making me feel small," he said to himself; "and if that kind of feeling comes over me when I am making her an offer, it will be of no use to plead my suit."

But what a prospect--master of Darrell Court and twenty thousand per annum! He would endure almost any humiliation to obtain that position.

"She must have me," he said to himself--"she shall have me! I will force her to be my wife!"

Why, if he could but announce his engagement to Miss Darrell, he could borrow as much money as would clear off all his liabilities! And how much he needed money no one knew better than himself. He had paid this visit to the Court because there were two writs out against him in London, and, unless he could come to some settlement of them, he knew what awaited him.

And all--fortune, happiness, wealth, freedom, prosperity--depended on one word from the proud lips that had hardly ever spoken kindly to him.

He loved her, too--loved her with a fierce, desperate love that at times frightened himself.

"I should like you," said Sir Oswald, at the conclusion of their interview, "to have the matter settled as soon as you can; because, I tell you, frankly, if my niece does not consent to marry you, I shall marry myself. All my friends are eagerly solicitous for me to do so; they do not like the prospect of seeing a grand old inheritance like this fall into the hands of a willful, capricious girl. But I tell you in confidence, Aubrey, I do not wish to marry. I am a confirmed old bachelor now, and it would be a sad trouble to me to have my life changed by marriage. Still I would rather marry than that harm should come to Darrell Court."

"Certainly," agreed the captain.

"I do not mind telling you still further that I have seen a lady whom, if I marry at all, I should like to make my wife--in fact, she resembles some one I used to know long years ago. I have every reason to believe she is much admired and sought after; so that I want you to settle your affairs as speedily as possible. Mind, Aubrey, they must be settled--there must be no deferring, no putting off; you must have an answer--yes or no--very shortly; and you must not lose an hour in communicating that answer to me."

"I hope it will be a favorable one," said Aubrey Langton; but his mind misgave him. He had an idea that the girl had found him wanting; he could not forget her first frank declaration that she did not like him.

"If she refuses me, have I your permission to tell Miss Darrell the alternative?" he asked of Sir Oswald.

The baronet thought deeply for some minutes, and then said:

"Yes; it is only fair and just that she should know it--that she should learn that if she refuses you she loses all chance of being my heiress.

But do not say anything of the lady I have mentioned."

The visitors were coming on Tuesday, and Thursday was the day settled for the ball.

"All girls like b.a.l.l.s," thought Captain Langton. "Pauline is sure to be in a good temper then, and I will ask her on Thursday night."

But he owned to himself that he would rather a thousand times have faced a whole battalion of enemies than ask Pauline Darrell to be his wife.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE QUEEN OF THE BALL.

It was many years since Darrell Court had been so gay. Sir Oswald had resolved that the ball should be one that should reflect credit on the giver and the guests. He had ordered a fine band of music and a magnificent banquet. The grounds were to be illuminated, colored lamps being placed among the trees; the ball-room was a gorgeous ma.s.s of brilliant bloom--tier after tier of magnificent flowers was ranged along the walls, white statues gleaming from the bright foliage, and little fountains here and there sending up their fragrant spray.

Sir Oswald had sent to London for some one to superintend the decorations; but they were not perfected until Miss Darrell, pa.s.sing through, suggested first one alteration, and then another, until the originators, recognizing her superior artistic judgment and picturesque taste, deferred to her, and then the decorations became a magnificent work of art.

Sir Oswald declared himself delighted, and the captain's praises were unmeasured. Then, and then only, Miss Darrell began to feel some interest in the ball; her love of beauty was awakened and pleased--there was something more in the event than the mere gratification of seeing people dance.