Phantom Fortune Part 29

She glanced up at him shyly, now and then, with eyes full of innocent wonder. It was so strange to her, as strange as sweet, to know that he loved her; such a marvellous thing that she had pledged herself to be his wife.

'You are my very own--mine to guard and cherish, mine to think and work for,' he went on, 'and you will have to trust me, sweet one, even if the beginning of things is not altogether free from trouble.'

'I am not afraid of trouble.'

'Bravely spoken! First and foremost, then, you will have to announce your engagement to Lady Maulevrier. She will take it ill, no doubt; will do her utmost to persuade you to give me up. Have you courage and resolution, do you think, to stand against her arguments? Can you hold to your purpose bravely, and cry, no surrender?'

'There shall be no surrender,' answered Mary, 'I promise you that. No doubt grandmother will be very angry. But she has never cared for me very much. It will not hurt her for me to make a bad match, as it would have done in Lesbia's case. She has had no day-dreams--no grand ambition about me!'

'So much the better, my wayside flower! When you have said all that is sweet and dutiful to her, and have let her know at the same time that you mean to be my wife, come weal come woe, I will see her, and will have my say. I will not promise her a grand career for my darling: but I will pledge myself that nothing of that kind which the world calls evil--no penury, or shabbiness of surroundings--shall ever touch Mary Haselden after she is Mary Hammond. I can promise at least so much as that.'

'It is more than enough,' said Mary. 'I have told you that I would gladly share poverty with you.'

'Sweet! it is good of you to say as much, but I would not take you at your word. You don't know what poverty is.'

'Do you think I am a coward, or self-indulgent? You are wrong, Jack. May I call you Jack, as Maulevrier does?'

'May you?'

The question evoked such a gush of tenderness that he was fain to kneel beside her chair and kiss the little hand holding the cup, before he considered he had answered properly.

'You are wrong, Jack. I do know what poverty means. I have studied the ways of the poor, tried to console them, and help them a little in their troubles; and I know there is no pain that want of money can bring which I would not share willingly with you. Do you suppose my happiness is dependent on a fine house and powdered footmen? I should like to go to the Red River with you, and wear cotton gowns, and tuck up my sleeves and clean our cottage.'

'Very pretty sport, dear, for a summer day; but my Mary shall have a sweeter life, and shall occasionally walk in silk attire.'

That tea-drinking by the fireside in the inn parlour was the most delicious thing within John Hammond's experience. Mary was a bewitching compound of earnestness and simplicity, so humble, so confiding, so perplexed and astounded at her own bliss.

'Confess, now, in the summer, when you were in love with Lesbia, you thought me a horrid kind of girl,' she said, presently, when they were standing side by side at the window, waiting for the coach.

'Never, Mary. My crime is to have thought very little about you in those days. I was so dazzled by Lesbia's beauty, so charmed by her accomplishments and girlish graces, that I forgot to take notice of anything else in the world. If I thought of you at all it was as another Maulevrier--a younger Maulevrier in petticoats, very gay, and good-humoured, and nice.'

'But when you saw me rushing about with the terriers--I must have seemed utterly horrid.'

'Why, dearest There is nothing essentially horrible in terriers, or in a bright lively girl running races with them. You made a very pretty picture in the sunlight, with your hat hanging on your shoulder, and your curly brown hair and dancing hazel eyes. If I had not been deep in love with Lesbia's peerless complexion and Grecian features, I should have looked below the surface of that Gainsborough picture, and discovered what treasures of goodness, and courage, and truth and purity those frank brown eyes and that wide forehead betokened. I was sowing my wild oats last summer, Mary, and they brought me a crop of sorrow But I am wiser now--wiser and happier.

'But if you were to see Lesbia again would not the old love revive?'

'The old love is dead, Mary. There is nothing left of it but a handful of ashes, which I scatter thus to the four winds,' with a wave of his hand towards the open cas.e.m.e.nt. 'The new love absorbs and masters my being. If Lesbia were to re-appear at Fellside this evening, I could offer her my hand in all brotherly frankness, and ask her to accept me as a brother. Here comes the coach. We shall be at Fellside just in time for dinner.'

CHAPTER XXII.

WISER THAN LESBIA.

Lady Mary and Mr. Hammond were back at Fellside at a quarter before eight, by which time the stars were shining on pine woods and Fell. They managed to be in the drawing-room when dinner was announced, after the hastiest of toilets; yet her lover thought Mary had never looked prettier than she looked that night, in her limp white cashmere gown, and with her brown hair brushed into a largo loose knot on the top of her head. There had been great uneasiness about them at Fellside when evening began to draw in, and the expected hour of their return had gone by. Scouts had been sent in quest of them, but in the wrong direction.

'I did not think you would be such idiots as to come down the north side of the hill in a tempest,' said Maulevrier; 'we could see the clouds racing over the crest of Seat Sandal, and knew it was blowing pretty hard up there, though it was calm enough down here.'

'Blowing pretty hard;' echoed Hammond, 'I don't think I was ever out in a worse gale; and yet I have been across the Bay of Biscay when the waves struck the side of the steamer like battering rams, and when the whole surface of the sea was white with seething foam.'

'It was a most imprudent thing to go up Helvellyn in such weather,' said Fraulein Muller, shaking her head gloomily as she ate her fish.

Mary felt that the Fraulein's manner boded ill. There was a storm brewing. A scolding was inevitable. Mary felt quite capable of doing battle with the Fraulein; but her feelings were altogether different when she thought of facing that stern old lady upstairs, and of the confession she had to make. It was not that her courage faltered. So far as resolutions went she was as firm as a rock. But she felt that there was a terrible ordeal to be gone through; and it seemed a mockery to be sitting there and pretending to eat her dinner and take things lightly, with that ordeal before her.

'We did not go up the hill in bad weather, Miss Muller,' said Mr.

Hammond. 'The sun was shining and the sky was blue when we started. We could not foresee darkness and storm at the top of the hill. That was the fortune of war.'

'I am very sorry Lady Mary had not more good sense,' replied Fraulein with unabated gloom; but on this Maulevrier took up the cudgels.

'If there was any want of sense in the business, that's my look-out, Fraulein,' he said, glaring angrily at the governess. 'It was I who advised Hammond and Lady Mary to climb the hill. And here they are, safe and sound after their journey I see no reason why there should be any fuss about it.'

'People have different ways of looking at things, replied Fraulein, plodding steadily on with her dinner. Mary rose directly the dessert had been handed round, and marched out of the room: like a warrior going to a battle in which the chances of defeat were strong. Fraulein Muller shuffled after her.

'Will you be kind enough to go to her ladyship's room at once, Lady Mary,' she said. 'She wants to speak to you.'

'And I want to speak to her,' said Mary.

She ran quickly upstairs and arrived in the morning room, a little out of breath. The room was lighted by one low moderator lamp, under a dark red velvet shade, and there was the glow of the wood fire, which gave a more cheerful light than the lamp. Lady Maulevrier was lying on her couch in a loose brocade tea-gown, with old Brussels collar and ruffles.

She was as well dressed in her day of affliction and helplessness as she had been in her day of strength; for she knew the value of surroundings, and that her stateliness and power were in some manner dependent on details of this kind. The one hand which she could use glittered with diamonds, as she waved it with a little imperious gesture towards the chair on which she desired Lady Mary to seat herself; and Mary sat down meekly, knowing that this chair represented the felon's dock.

'Mary,' began her grandmother, with freezing gravity, 'I have been surprised and shocked by your conduct to-day. Yes, surprised at such conduct even in you.'

'I do not think I have done anything very wrong, grandmother.'

'Not wrong! You have done nothing wrong? You have done something absolutely outrageous. You, my granddaughter, well born, well bred, reared under my roof, to go up Helvellyn and lose yourself in a fog alone with a young man. You could hardly have done worse if you were a c.o.c.kney tourist,' concluded her ladyship, with ineffable disgust.

'I could not help the fog,' said Mary, quietly. The battle had to be fought, and she was not going to flinch. 'I had no intention of going up Helvellyn alone with Mr. Hammond. Maulevrier was to have gone with us; but when we got to Dolly Waggon he was tired, and would not go any further. He told me to go on with Mr. Hammond.'

'_He_ told you! Maulevrier!--a young man who has spent some of the best hours of his youth in the company of jockeys and trainers--who hasn't the faintest idea of the fitness of things. You allow Maulevrier to be your guide in a matter in which your own instinct should have guided you--your womanly instinct! But you have always been an unwomanly girl.

You have put me to shame many a time by your hoydenish tricks; but I bore with you, believing that your madcap follies were at least harmless. To-day you have gone a step too far, and have been guilty of absolute impropriety, which I shall be very slow to pardon.'

'Perhaps you will be still more angry when you know all, grandmother,'

said Mary.

Lady Maulevrier flashed her dark eyes at the girl with a look which would have almost killed a nervous subject; but Mary faced her steadfastly, very pale, but as resolute as her ladyship.

'When I know all! What more is there for me to know?'

'Only that while we were on the top of Helvellyn, in the fog and the wind, Mr. Hammond asked me to be his wife.'

'I am not surprised to hear it,' retorted her ladyship, with a harsh laugh. 'A girl who could act so boldly and flirtingly was a natural mark for an adventurer. Mr. Hammond no doubt has been told that you will have a little money by-and-by, and thinks he might do worse than marry you.

And seeing how you have flung yourself at his head, he naturally concludes that you will not be too proud to accept your sister's leavings.'

'There is nothing gained by making cruel speeches, grandmother,' said Mary, firmly. 'I have promised to be John Hammond's wife, and there is nothing you nor anyone else can say which will make me alter my mind. I wish to act dutifully to you, if I can, and I hope you will be good to me and consent to this marriage. But if you will not consent, I shall marry him all the same. I shall be full of sorrow at having to disobey you, but I have promised, and I will keep my promise.'

'You will act in open rebellion against me--against the kinswoman who has reared you, and educated you, and cared for you in all these years!'