Only One Love, or Who Was the Heir Part 73

Short as the time had been he had effected a radical change in the old house; a hundred workmen had been busy, and the ramshackle old mansion had been transformed. Wings had been added, the grounds had been newly laid out; the road, even, had been altered, and they drove through an avenue of thriving young limes.

Una, silent and interested, kept her eyes fixed on the house. She had often heard Jack describe it, but this palatial residence did not answer to his description. Stephen's money and energy had entirely transformed the place.

The carriage pulled up at the entrance, and half a dozen grooms flew to the horses' heads: footmen in handsome liveries stood in attendance, and the servants formed a lane for their master to pa.s.s through. Una had often read of such a reception, but here was a reality.

Stephen helped her to alight, and took her and his mother on his arm, his head erect, a warm flush on his cheek.

Suddenly the flush disappeared and a frown took its place as he saw amongst the crowd gathered together at the entrance the parchment-like visage of old Skettle.

But the frown disappeared as he entered the house, and stood silent, listening to the approving comments of Mrs. Davenant.

"My dear Stephen," she said, "you have certainly altered the place--I should not have known it. And is this what was the gloomy old Hall?"

"Yes," said Stephen, proudly, and he glanced round at the alterations with an air of satisfaction, and looked at Una's face for some sign of approval.

But Una was looking around anxiously. If it was so much altered, then it was not the old home that Jack knew and remembered.

"You will find everything altered and improved, I hope," said Stephen.

Altered, indeed! They have even shifted the old staircase, so that it would have been difficult to have found the room in which the old squire died, exclaiming:

"You thief! you thief! what have you done with the will?"

Yes, indeed, there was great alteration. The old squire, if he had come to life again, would not have known Hurst as Stephen had made it.

Masons, carpenters, and decorators had been at work to some purpose.

Everything was changed, and unmistakably for the better.

Stephen looked around with an air of pride.

"They have been very quick," he said. "I placed it in good hands. You will find everything you require up-stairs. You must know," he said, turning to Una, "that I found the place little better than a barn, and have done my best to make it fit to receive you! You are looking at the portraits," he added, seeing Una's gaze wandering along the double line of dead and gone Davenants. "Most of them you would not have seen two months ago, they had been terribly neglected, but I have had them cleaned and renewed. That is the old squire, my poor uncle," and he sighed comfortably.

Una paused before this, the last portrait of the series, and looked at it long and curiously, and the other two stood and watched her, Stephen with a keen glance of scrutiny and with a nervous tremor about his heart. If she could but know that she was looking at the portrait of her own father! Una turned away at last with a faint sigh. She was thinking that this was the old man who had once loved Jack and left him to poverty.

Mrs. Davenant shuddered slightly.

"He was a terrible old man, my dear," she murmured, "and always frightened me. I trembled when he looked at me."

"He does not look so terrible," said Una, sadly.

Stephen fidgeted slightly.

"Come," he said, "you must not catch cold. Your maids are here by this time. Will you go up to your room? The housekeeper will show them to you, and I hope you will find everything comfortable."

Very slowly, looking to right and left of her, Una followed Mrs.

Davenant up the broad staircase.

The place seemed to have a strange fascination for her; she could almost have persuaded herself that she had been in it before, and it seemed familiar, though so much changed from all likeness to Jack's description of it.

They found the rooms upstairs beautifully decorated, and furnished in the most approved and luxurious style. Lady Bell's house in Park Lane even was eclipsed.

"Stephen has made it a palace," said Mrs. Davenant. "How I used to hate it in the old time! it was so dark and grim and gloomy, always felt dull and damp. Stephen tells me that he has had it thoroughly drained after the new fashion, and that it is quite dry. Such a palace as this wants a mistress; I wish he would marry."

"Why do you not tell him so?" said Una, with a smile.

Mrs. Davenant shook her head nervously.

"That would do no good, my dear," she said. "I sometimes think he will never marry."

And she glanced at Una with some embarra.s.sment. A dim suspicion had of late crossed her mind that if Una had been free, Stephen might have stood in Jack's place. She could not help noticing Stephen's close attendance on Una--a mother's eyes are sharp to note such things.

If the old squire could have seen the dining-room and the elaborate _menu_ that evening, he would have stared and sworn. Stephen had engaged a French cook; the appointments were as perfect as they could be; the servants admirably trained, and as to the wines the Hurst cellar stood second to none in the country.

It almost seemed as if he were sparing no pains to impress on Una all that the wife of Stephen Davenant would possess. And Una, more than half the dinner-time, was thinking of Jack, and fondly picturing the little house they had so often talked of setting up when the commissionership came home. Just at the same time, Jack was leaning over Lady Bell's chair in the theater.

Stephen was in his best mood, and exerted himself to the uttermost. He described the neighborhood, planned excursions and expeditions; told innumerable anecdotes of the village folk, and played the host to perfection.

In a thousand ways he showed his anxiety for Una's comfort; and after dinner he had the place lit up, and went over it, asking her opinion on this point and the other, and humbly begging her to suggest alterations.

So much so that Una began to grow shy and reserved, and shrank closer to Mrs. Davenant; and Stephen, quick to see when he was going too fast, left them and went to the library to write letters.

Now, strange to say, of all the rooms in the house, this one room remained unaltered. He had not allowed it to be touched--indeed it was kept closely locked, and the key never left him night and day. Just as it had been on the night of the squire's death, when Stephen stood with the stolen will in his hand, so it was now.

He never entered it without a shudder, and all the time he was in it his eyes unconsciously wandered over the floor and furniture as if mechanically searching for something.

It exerted a strange, weird influence over him, and seemed to draw him into it. Tonight he paced up and down, looking at the familiar objects, and making no attempt to write his letters.

His brain was busy, not with schemes of ambition and avarice, but of love. The blood ran riot in his veins as he thought that Una was under the same roof as himself, and one mighty resolve took possession of him.

"She shall never leave it but to come back as my wife," was his resolve.

Even the lost will did not trouble him tonight. He had Una in his grasp, Una upon whom everything turned.

It was far into the morning before he went to bed, and at the head of the stairs he turned and looked round with a proud smile.

"All--all mine!" he muttered, "and I will have her, too," and he went to sleep and dreamed, not of Una, but of Laura Treherne.

All through the watches of the night the pale, dark face haunted him. At times he saw it peering at him through the library window, at others it was pursuing him along an endless road; but always it wore a threatening aspect and filled him with a vague terror.

Some men's conscience only awake at night.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

If Una had been a queen visiting some distant part of her realm, more elaborate preparations for her amus.e.m.e.nt could not have been made.

Not a day pa.s.sed but Stephen had got some proposition for pleasuring, and he never tired of hunting up some place to go.