Love Works Wonders Part 34

"I have nothing to do," she said, "but make every one happy; and it is my duty to find you always a comfortable home."

Lady Darrell looked, as she was in those days, a most happy woman. She seemed to have grown younger and fairer. The height of her ambition, the height of her happiness, was reached at last. She was rich in the world's goods, and it was in her power to make the man she loved rich and powerful too. She was, for the first time in her life, pleasing her own heart; and happiness made her more tender, more amiable, more considerate and thoughtful for others.

Lady Hampton mourned over the great mistake her niece was making. She had whispered in confidence to all her dear friends that Elinor was really going to throw herself away on the captain after all. It was such a pity, she said, when Lord Aynsley was so deeply in love with her.

"But then," she concluded, with a sigh, "it is a matter in which I cannot interfere."

Yet, looking at Lady Darrell's bright, happy face, she could not quite regret the captain's existence.

"You will not be lonely, Lady Darrell," said Miss Hastings, the evening before her journey.

She never forgot the light that spread over the fair young face--the intense happiness that shone in the blue eyes.

"No," she returned, with a sigh of unutterable content, "I shall never be lonely again. I have thoughts and memories that keep my heart warm--all loneliness or sorrow is over for me."

On the morrow Miss Darrell and the governess were to go to Omberleigh, but the same night Lady Darrell went to Pauline's room.

"I hope you will excuse me," she said, when the girl looked up in haughty surprise. "I want to say a few words to you before you go."

The cool, formal terms on which they lived were set aside, and for the first time Lady Darrell visited Pauline in her room.

"I want to ask you one great favor," continued Lady Darrell. "Will you promise me that Miss Hastings shall not want for anything? She is far from strong."

"I shall consider Miss Hastings my own especial charge," said Pauline.

"But you must allow me to help you. I have a very great affection for her, and desire nothing better than to prove it by kind actions."

"Miss Hastings would be very grateful to you if she knew it," said Pauline.

"But I do not want her to be grateful. I do not want her to know anything about it. With all her gentleness, Miss Hastings has an independence quite her own--an independence that I respect greatly; but it is quite possible, you know, Pauline, to manage an invalid--to provide good wine and little delicacies."

"I will do all that myself," observed the young girl.

Lady Darrell went nearer to her.

"Pauline," she said, gently, "you have always repelled every effort of mine; you would not be friends with me. But now, dear--now that I am so much happier, that I have no cloud in my sky save the shadow of your averted face--be a little kinder to me. Say that you forgive me, if I have wronged you."

"You have wronged me, Lady Darrell, and you know it. For me to talk of forgiveness is only a farce; it is too late for that. I have had my revenge!"

Lady Darrell looked up at her with a startled face.

"What is that you say, Pauline?"

"I repeat it," said the girl, huskily--"I have had my revenge!"

"What can you mean? Nothing of moment has happened to me. You are jesting, Pauline."

"It would be well for you if I were," said the girl; "but I tell you in all truth I have had my revenge!"

And those words sounded in Lady Darrell's ears long after Pauline had left Darrell Court.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

THE STRANGER ON THE SANDS.

The tide was coming in, the sun setting over the sea; the crimson and golden light seemed to be reflected in each drop of water until the waves were one ma.s.s of heaving roseate gold; a sweet western wind laden with rich, aromatic odors from the pine woods seemed to kiss the waves as they touched the sh.o.r.e and broke into sheets of beautiful white foam.

It was such a sunset and such a sea--such a calm and holy stillness. The golden waters stretched out as far and wide as the eye could reach. The yellow sands were clear and smooth; the cliffs that bounded the coast were steep and covered with luxuriant green foliage. Pauline Darrell had gone to the beach, leaving Miss Hastings, who already felt much better, to the enjoyment of an hour's solitude.

There was a small niche in one of the rocks, and the young girl sat down in it, with the broad, beautiful expanse of water spread out before her, and the shining waves breaking at her feet. She had brought a book with her, but she read little; the story did not please her. The hero of it was too perfect. With her eyes fixed on the golden, heaving expanse of water, she was thinking of the difference between men in books and men in real life. In books they were all either brave or vicious--either very n.o.ble or very base.

She pa.s.sed in review all the men she had ever known, beginning with her kind-hearted, genial father, the clever humorist artist, who could define a man's character in an epigram so skillfully. He was no hero of romance; he liked his cigar, his "gla.s.s," and his jest. She thought of all his rugged, picturesque artist-comrades, blunt of speech, honest of heart, open-handed, generous, self-sacrificing men, who never envied a comrade's prosperity, nor did even their greatest enemy an evil turn; yet they were not heroes of romance. She thought of Sir Oswald--the stately gentleman of the old school, who had held his name and race so dear, yet had made so fatal an error in his marriage and will. She thought of the captain, handsome and polished in manner, and her face grew pale as she remembered him. She thought of Lord Aynsley, for whom she had a friendly liking, not unmixed with wonder that he could so deeply love the fair, soft-voiced, inane Lady Darrell.

Then she began to reflect how strange it was that she had lived until now, yet had never seen a man whom she could love. Her beautiful lips curled in scorn as she thought of it.

"If ever I love any one at all," she said to herself, "it must be some one whom I feel to be my master. I could not love a man who was weak in body, soul, heart, or mind. I must feel that he is my master; that my soul yields to his; that I can look up to him as the real guiding star of my life, as the guide of my actions. If ever I meet such a man, and vow to love him, what will my love do for me? I do not think I could fall in love with a book-hero either; they are too coldly perfect. I should like a hero with some human faults, with a touch of pride capable of being roused into pa.s.sion."

Suddenly, as the thought shaped itself in her mind, she saw a tall figure crossing the sands--the figure of a man, walking quickly.

He stopped at some little distance from the cliff, and then threw himself on the sand. His eyes were fixed on the restless, beautiful sea; and she, attracted by his striking masculine beauty, the statuesque att.i.tude, the grand, free grace of the strong limbs, the royal carriage of the kingly head, watched him. In the Louvre she had seen some marvelous statues, and he reminded her of them. There was one of Antinous, with a grand, n.o.ble face, a royal head covered with cl.u.s.ters of hair, and the stranger reminded her of it.

She looked at him in wonder. She had seen picturesque-looking men--dandies, fops--but this was the first time she had ever seen a n.o.ble and magnificent-looking man.

"If his soul is like his face," she thought to herself, "he is a hero."

She watched him quite unconsciously, admiration gradually entering her heart.

"I should like to hear him speak," she thought. "I know just what kind of voice ought to go with that face."

It was a dreamy spot, a dreamy hour, and he was all unconscious of her presence. The face she was watching was like some grand, harmonious poem to her; and as she so watched there came to her the memory of the story of Lancelot and Elaine. The restless golden waters, the yellow sands, the cliffs, all faded from her view, and she, with her vivid imagination, saw before her the castle court where Elaine first saw him, lifted her eyes and read his lineaments, and then loved him with a love that was her doom. The face on which she gazed was marked by no great and guilty love--it was the face of Lancelot before his fall, when he shone n.o.blest, purest, and grandest of all King Arthur's knights.

"It was for his face Elaine loved him," thought the girl--"grand and n.o.ble as is the face on which the sun shines now."

Then she went through the whole of that marvelous story; she thought of the purity, the delicate grace, the fair loveliness of Elaine, as contrasted with the pa.s.sionate love which, flung back upon itself, led her to prefer death to life--of that strange, keen, pa.s.sionate love that so suddenly changed the whole world for the maid of Astolat.

"And I would rather be like her," said the girl to herself; "I would rather die loving the highest and the best than live loving one less worthy."

It had seized her imagination, this beautiful story of a deathless love.

"I too could have done as Elaine did," she thought; "for love cannot come to me wearing the guise it wears to others. I could read the true n.o.bility of a man's soul in his face; I could love him, asking no love in return. I could die so loving him, and believing him greatest and best."

Then, as she mused, the sunlight deepened on the sea, the rose became purple, the waters one beaming ma.s.s of bright color, and he who had so unconsciously aroused her sleeping soul to life rose and walked away over the sands. She watched him as he pa.s.sed out of sight.

"I may never see him again," she thought; "but I shall remember his face until I die."

A great calm seemed to fall over her; the very depths of her heart had been stirred. She had been wondering so short a time before if she should ever meet any one at all approaching the ideal standard of excellence she had set up in her mind. It seemed like an answer to her thoughts when he crossed the sands.