Sir Noel's Heir Part 12

May was flitting about like the fairy she was, her head a little on one side, like a critical canary, her flowing skirt held up, inspecting the pictures.

"'Jeanne D'Arc before her Judges,' half finished, as usual, and never to be completed; and weak--very, if it ever _was_ completed. 'Battle of Bosworth Field,' in flaming colors, all confusion and smoke and red ochre and rubbish; you did well not to trouble yourself any more with that. 'Swiss Peasant'--ah! that _is_ pretty. 'Storm at Sea,' just tolerable. 'Trial of Marie Antoinette.' My dear Rupert, why will you persist in these figure paintings when you know your forte is landscape?

'An Evening in the Eternal City.' Now, that is what I call an exquisite little thing! Look at the moon, Aileen, rising over those hill-tops; and see those trees--you can almost feel the wind that blows! And that prostrate figure--why, that looks like yourself, Rupert!"

"It _is_ myself."

"And the other, stooping--who is he?"

"The painter of that picture, Miss Everard; yes, the only thing in my poor studio you see fit to eulogize is not mine. It was done by an artist friend--an unknown Englishman, who saved my life in Rome three years ago. Come in, mother mine, and defend your son from the two-edged sword of May Everard's tongue."

For Lady Thetford, pale and languid, appeared on the threshold, wrapped in a shawl.

"It's all for his good, mamma. Come here and look at this 'Evening in the Eternal City.' Rupert has nothing like it in all his collection, though these are the beginning of many better things. He saved your life? How was it?"

"Oh! a little affair with brigands; nothing very thrilling, but I should have been killed or captured all the same, if this Legard had not come to the rescue. May is right about the picture; he painted well, had come to Rome to perfect himself in his art. Very fine fellow, Legard."

"Legard!"

It was Lady Thetford who had spoken sharply and suddenly. She had put up her gla.s.s to look at the Italian picture, but dropped it, and faced abruptly round.

"Yes, Legard. Guy Legard, a young Englishman, about my own age.

By-the-bye, if you saw him, you would be surprised by his singular resemblance to some of those dead and gone Thetfords hanging over there in the picture-gallery--fair hair, blue eyes, and the same peculiar cast of features to a shade. I was rather taken aback, I confess, when I saw it first. My dear mother----"

It was not a cry Lady Thetford had uttered--it was a kind of wordless sob. He soon caught her in his arms and held her there, her face the color of death.

"Get a gla.s.s of water, May--she is subject to these attacks. Quick!"

Lady Thetford drank the water, and sunk back in the chair Aileen wheeled up, her face looking awfully corpse-like in contrast to her dark garments and dead black hair.

"You should not have left your room," said Sir Rupert, "after your attack this morning. Perhaps you had better return and lie down. You look perfectly ghastly."

"No," his mother sat up as she spoke and pushed away the gla.s.s, "there is no necessity for lying down. Don't wear that scared face, May--it was nothing, I a.s.sure you. Go on with what you were saying, Rupert."

"What I was saying? What was it?"

"About this young artist's resemblance to the Thetfords."

"Oh! well, there's no more to say; that is all. He saved my life and he painted that picture, and we were Damon and Pythias over again during my stay in Rome. I always _do_ fraternize with those sort of fellows, you know; and I left him in Rome, and he promised, if he ever returned to England--which he wasn't so sure of--he would run down to Devonshire to see me and my painted ancestors, whom he resembles so strongly. That is all; and now, young ladies, if you will take your places we will commence on the Rosamond and Eleanor. Mother, sit here by this window if you want to play propriety, and don't talk."

But Lady Thetford chose to go to her own room, and her son gave her his arm thither and left her lying back amongst her cushions in front of the fire. It was always chilly in those great and somewhat gloomy rooms, and her ladyship was always cold of late. She lay there looking with gloomy eyes into the ruddy blaze, and holding her hands over her painfully beating heart.

"It is destiny, I suppose," she thought, bitterly; "let me banish him to the farthest end of the earth; let me keep him in poverty and obscurity all his life, and when the day comes that it is written, Guy Legard will be here. Sooner or later the vow I have broken to Sir Noel Thetford must be kept; sooner or later Sir Noel's heir will have his own."

CHAPTER X.

ASKING IN MARRIAGE.

A fire burned in Lady Thetford's room, and among piles of silken pillows my lady, languid and pale, lay, looking into the leaping flame. It was a hot July morning, the sun blazed like a wheel of fire in a sky without a cloud, but Lady Thetford was always chilly of late. She drew the crimson shawl she wore closer around her, and glanced impatiently now and then at the pretty toy clock on the decorated chimney-piece. The house was very still; its one disturbing element, Miss Everard, was absent with Sir Rupert for a morning canter over the sunny Devon hills.

"How long they stay, and these solitary rides are so dangerous! Oh! what will become of me if it is too late, after all! What shall I do if he says no?"

There was a quick man's step without--a moment and the door opened, and Sir Rupert, "booted and spurred" from his ride, was bending over his mother.

"Louise says you sent for me after I left. What is it, mother--you are not worse?"

He knelt beside her. Lady Thetford put back the fair brown hair with tender touch, and gazed in the handsome face so like her own, with eyes full of unspeakable love.

"My boy! my boy!" she murmured, "my darling Rupert! Oh! it _is_ hard, it _is_ bitter to have to leave you!"

"Mother!" with a quick look of alarm, "what it it? Are you worse?"

"No worse, Rupert; but no better. My boy, I shall never be better again in this world."

"Mother----"

"Hush, my Rupert--wait; you know it is true; and but for leaving you I should be glad to go. My life has not been so happy since your father died, that I should greatly cling to it."

"But, mother, this won't do; these morbid fancies are worst of all.

Keeping up one's spirits is half the battle."

"I am not morbid; I merely state a fact--a fact which must preface what is to come. Rupert, I know I am dying, and before we part I want to see my successor at Thetford Towers."

"My dear mother!" amazedly.

"Rupert, I want to see Aileen Jocyln your wife. No, no; don't interrupt me, but believe me, I dislike match-making quite as cordially as you do; but my days on earth are numbered, and I must speak before it is too late. When we were abroad I thought there never would be occasion; when we returned home I thought so, too. Rupert, I have ceased to think so since May Everhard's return."

The young man's face flushed suddenly and hotly, but he made no reply.

"How any man in his senses could possibly prefer May to Aileen, is a mystery I cannot solve; but then these things puzzle the wisest of us at times. Mind, my boy, I don't really say you _do_ prefer May--I should be very unhappy if I thought so. I know--I am certain you love Aileen best; and I am equally certain she is a thousand times better suited to you.

Then, as a man of honor, you owe it to her. You have paid Miss Jocyln such attentions as no honorable gentleman should pay any lady, save the one he means to make his wife."

Lady Thetford's son rose abruptly, and stood leaning against the mantle, looking into the fire.

"Rupert, tell me truly, if May Everard had not come here, would you not ere this have asked Aileen to be your wife?"

"Yes--no--I don't know! Mother!" the young man cried, impatiently, "what has May Everard done that you should treat her like this?"

"Nothing; and I love her dearly, and you know it. But she is not suited to you--she is not the woman you should marry."

Sir Rupert laughed--a hard strident laugh.

"I think Miss Everard is much of your opinion, my lady. You might have spared yourself all these fears and perplexities, for the simple reason that I should have been refused had I asked."

"Rupert?"