The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals Part 35

Clara brushed some fallen leaves from a rock, near which they were standing, and sat down, motioning him to take the vacant place by her side.

"There--now let us begin."

"Do you guess why I did not come before, Lady Clara?"

"No--I have not the least idea. Perhaps you did not like me, or were shocked with my hat; poor thing, it is getting awfully shabby."

"Shall I tell you?"

"Of course; why not?"

"Because the old gentleman over yonder and my lady at Houghton, had set their hearts upon it."

"Set their hearts upon it. How?"

"They have decreed that I shall fall in love with you, and you with me, at first sight."

Clara stared at him a moment, with her widening blue eyes, and then broke into a laugh that set all the birds about her to singing in a joyous chorus.

"What, you and I?"

"Exactly."

"But you have more sense. You could not be induced to oblige them. I feel quite sure."

"But why, pray? Am I so very stupid?"

"No; but you are so very kind, and would not do anything so cruel."

Lord Hilton laughed; he could not help it.

"But why would it be cruel?"

"Because--because it would get me into trouble. Grandmamma is a lovely old angel, and to oblige her I would fall in love with fifty men if it were possible, especially after what she has done to-day: but it is not possible."

"And the old gentleman at the opposite side of the valley is good as gold, and I should like to oblige him; and sometimes I feel as if it could be done, so far as I am concerned, but for one thing."

"And what is that?"

"Lady Clara, if I had not been fatally in love already, I should by this time have adored you."

The color came and went in the girl's face. She tore a handful of ferns from the rock, and dropped them into the water at her feet; then she lifted her eyes to the young man's face, with the innocent confidence of a child. Her voice was low and timid as she spoke again; but the ring of modest truth was there.

"Lord Hilton, I am very young; but in what you have said, I can see that you and I ought to understand each other. You love another person--I, too, am beloved."

A shade of disappointment swept the young man's features. He had not wished this fair girl to care for him, yet the thought that it was impossible brought a little annoyance with it.

"And yourself?"

"I have permitted a man to say he loved me, and did not rebuke him; because every word he spoke made my heart leap."

"But will the old countess consent?"

"I thought so--I hoped so, till you startled me with this idea about yourself. Oh! be firm, be firm in hating me. Don't leave the whole battle to a poor little girl."

"Perhaps I shall not feel all your earnestness, for there is no hope in the future for me, with or without consent. I can never turn back to the past, though I am not villain enough to lay a heart which contains the image of another at any woman's feet, without giving her a full knowledge of that which has gone before. The love which I confess to you, Lady Clara, was put resolutely behind me before we met."

Quick as thought a suspicion flashed through the girl's brain. She turned her eyes full upon the handsome head and face of the young man, and examined his features keenly. His hat was off; he was bending earnestly toward her.

"Lord Hilton, you sat in a box in the opera next to us on the night when that young American singer broke down. I remember your head now. You were leaning from the box when she fainted; her eyes were turned upon you as she fell. She is the woman you love."

"Say whom I loved, and Heaven knows I did love her; but she fled from me without a word, to expose herself upon that stage. I thought her the daughter of a respectable man, at least; when I am told in every club-house, she is the nameless child of that woman, Olympia. I would not believe it, till the actress confirmed the story with her own lips; then I learned that her home was with this woman, and that she, a creature I had believed innocent as the wild blossoms, had used her glorious voice for the entertainment of her mother's Sunday evening parties."

Lady Clara grew pale, and her eyes began to flash.

"You are doing great wrong to a n.o.ble and good young lady," she said, in a clear, ringing voice, from which all laughter had gone out. "You are unjust, cruel--wickedly cruel--both to yourself and her. I have no patience with you!"

"Do you know Caroline, then? But that is impossible."

"Impossible--what? That I should know the daughter of Olympia? But I do know her. There was a time, I honestly believe, when we were children together, cared for by the same nurse. This I can a.s.sure you, Lord Hilton: she was not brought up by the actress; never saw her, in truth, until she was over sixteen years old, when the woman, hearing of her genius and beauty, claimed her as a chattel rather than a child."

"Are you sure of this, Lady Clara?" inquired the young man, greatly disturbed.

"I know it. The poor young lady, brought up with such delicate care, educated as if she were one day to become a peeress of the land, took a terrible dislike to the stage, and, so long as she dared, protested against the life that ambitious actress had marked out for her. That night you saw her she was forced upon the stage after praying upon her knees to be spared. Her acting, from the first, was desperation. She saw you, and it became despair; and you could doubt her--you could leave her. Lord Hilton, I hate you!"

"I begin to hate myself," said the young man in a low voice; "but even now, what can I do? What power have I to wrest her from the influence of that woman?"

"What power? The power of honest and generous love. Ask her to marry you."

Lord Hilton answered with a faint, bitter laugh.

"Ask her to marry me, and, with that act, proclaim myself a beggar! I tell you, Lady Clara, there is not upon this earth a creature so dependent as a n.o.bleman with nothing but expectations. Were I to follow your advice the doors of my home would be closed against me. I should have a t.i.tle, by courtesy, to offer my wife, and nothing more. She would, perhaps, be compelled to go on the stage to support me--a poor subst.i.tute for these two vast estates which these old people hope to unite in us."

CHAPTER XXV.

HOW LADY CLARA GOT HER OWN WAY.

Lady Clara turned on the young n.o.bleman with glowing anger.

"Lord Hilton," she said, "it is the land they are thinking of; but an earthquake may swallow it before I will sell a corner of my heart at their price. I am only a girl, Lord Hilton, and, perhaps, this ancestral grandeur seems less to me on that account; but the n.o.blest possession that can be given to me is liberty--liberty of heart, limb and conscience--liberty to love and hate--though I do not hate any one very much--but to love that which is splendid and good without regard to anything else. The grandest thing upon the face of the earth, Lord Hilton, is to own oneself. If I were a man no one should own me but the woman I loved."

Was the girl inspired? You would have thought so from the sparkle that came into her eyes, like sunshine striking the dew in a violet--from the quick, generous curve of her lips, and the flush of color that rushed over her face.

Lord Hilton looked at her with such admiration as would, perhaps, have made obedience to the wishes of his family an easier thing than he dreamed of; but he knew something of the world, and had, more than once, searched the female hearts that came in his way, for the gratification of vanity alone. He read the one before him on the instant.