The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals Part 4

"Dear me, I am so sorry, because I wanted to tell you something."

The girl spoke and acted like a penitent child. Hepworth sat down again, but his face was clouded.

"You can do anything with mamma Rachael, and I want you to ask a great favor for me."

"Why not ask yourself? My sister denies you nothing."

"But this is something peculiar, and she may think papa would not like it. There is to be a new opera brought out in London, and such a lovely girl is to make her first appearance in it, handsome as the morning, and with a voice like ten thousand nightingales. Now, I do so want to hear her on the first night."

"Well, that is easy."

"Yes, yes--if mamma Rachael would only think so. But papa is awful particular, and she may be afraid to take me. But with you for an escort, there can't really be any harm; so I want your help."

"But how did you know about this? I have not seen it in the journals."

"No, it hasn't got abroad yet. I will tell you all about it. When I was a very, very little girl, my poor mother died in America, where she was travelling among the Indians, I believe, with my father. Well, you see how hard it was on papa to be left with a poor little girl among the savages. I do not know just how it was; but when he married mamma Rachael, ever so long after, of course she got an American nurse in New York, who has been with me ever since. I call her my maid now, and won't have any other, French or not--for she's good as gold, and loves me dearly. You will believe that when I tell you our head gamekeeper wanted to marry her--she loved him, too, but wouldn't leave me. Margaret left a sister behind in New York that she was very fond of, and has been pining to see for years. Just before you came she received a letter from London, saying that her sister was there, travelling with some lady connected with the stage, and asking Margaret to come and visit her. Of course, Margaret went, and has been all this time on a long visit to her relative, who came to Europe with the great prima donna, Olympia. It is her adopted daughter that is coming out."

"Olympia. Yes, I saw her in America last year--a wonderfully beautiful creature, in a certain way; but her style of acting is not exactly what I should choose for you, Lady Clara, though her voice is wonderful."

"Oh, it isn't her I care about, but the young lady. Margaret says she is lovely as an angel, with a heavenly voice, but that she is frightened to death at coming on the stage, and begs and pleads with her mother not to insist on it; but Olympia is determined. My heart quite aches for this poor girl. She is about my age, Margaret says, and so beautiful--not a bit like me. I dare say it's true, for I would give the world to be an actress, and have the whole world go mad over my singing. By-the-way, Mr. Closs, do you know that I can sing? Mamma Rachael often says, if I were not a lady, I might go on the stage and beat half the prima donnas; besides, she says, I am a natural actress, and that seems to displease her."

"I think you are a natural actress," said Closs, with a tinge of sarcasm, for this whole subject displeased him, he scarcely could have told why.

"Now you mean to be unkind," said Clara, rising, with a warm flush in her cheeks; "I will not ask another favor of you."

Clara gathered up her embroidery, and prepared to leave the sheltered seat in which this conversation had been held. She certainly was not acting now, for Closs saw that her eyes were full of tears.

"Clara," he said, holding out both hands; "Clara, forgive me."

She hesitated a minute, then set down her basket, and crept close to his side, wiping the tears with one hand, while he clasped the other. Then she s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand away, and held it behind her.

"No--I won't forgive you."

"Not if I persuade Lady Hope to take you up to London for this appearance?"

"Ah, then, perhaps."

"And go with you myself?"

"That will be splendid."

"That Olympia is a magnificent creature. I took supper with her once in New York."

"You, Mr. Closs! You took supper with her?"

"She sang for us that night, divinely."

"And you admire her so much?"

"Very much."

"Mr. Closs, I do not think I care to go. There is no need of your asking Lady Hope--I decline the whole thing."

"Still, I think we will go, Clara, if it is only to show you how much a woman can be worshipped, and yet despised. Yes, yes, we will go and hear Olympia sing."

But Clara was not to be so easily appeased. She gathered up her worsted and embroidery, huddled them together in her work-basket and went away, refusing to let Closs carry her basket, or even walk by her side.

While he stood watching the haughty little thing, a voice from the other side of the cedar tree arrested him. He turned, and saw a face that had once been familiar, but which he could not at the moment recognize.

The woman came forward with a startled look. She was evidently past thirty, and had an air of independence, which he had never seen in an English domestic.

She came closer, their eyes met, and he knew that it was Maggie Casey, the chambermaid who had led him up to that death-chamber, the last time he visited it. She had recognized him from the first.

"Mr. Hepworth," she said, in a low voice: "Mr. Hepworth!"

Closs had almost been prepared for this, and did not allow himself to be taken by surprise.

"You have got half the name right at any rate," he said, quietly; "Hepworth Closs, and you have it complete. You never could have heard it in full, when you lived in New York, I fancy."

"Closs, Closs? No, I never heard that name given to you; but it once belonged to Lady Hope, I remember."

"And of course, naturally belongs to her brother, my good girl," said Closs, with a quiet smile.

"Her brother? Whose brother? Not the Lady that was--"

The girl broke off, and her voice died in a low whisper.

"No, no!" broke in the man, with sudden impatience; "that was a terrible thing, which you and I will be all the happier in forgetting. The poor woman who did it is suffering a hard penalty, if she is not in fact dead."

"Yes, sir, yes; but how came her grandchild here? How came you there?"

"Hush!" said Hepworth, in a voice of command, that startled the woman; "who gave you authority to ask such questions? What can you know about the old woman's grandchild?"

"I know that the young lady who left you ten minutes ago was the little girl they called her grandchild. I saw the coroner holding the poor little thing up to look on the dead lady. I think that lady was her mother."

"And have told her so, perhaps?"

"No; I never did, and I never will. She called the old woman, Yates, grandmother; but I know better than that, for I know where her grandchild is this very minute."

"You know her grandchild?"

"Yes, I do, and a prettier creature never lived."

"You know her, and will tell me?"

"Indeed, I will do nothing of the sort," answered Margaret, for she had thrown off the jaunty abbreviation of her name. "There is something about all this that puzzles me. People that I never expected to see again keep crossing my path like ghosts, and somehow most of them have something to do with that time. Why can't the whole thing rest? I'm sure that poor old woman, Yates, has had her punishment, and I don't want to talk about what I don't understand."

"You are wise," said Closs, whose face had lost all its cheerfulness; "there is no good in even thinking of a dead past, and, as you say, that poor old woman has her punishment. I am glad you have said nothing of these things to my sister, or Lady Clara."