The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals Part 27

Never, since the day in which he brought the first Lady Hope home, a bride, had such intense satisfaction filled the earl's heart as this letter brought him.

Involved, as he was, with pecuniary difficulties, hara.s.sed about his daughter, humiliated by the silent rejection by which the n.o.bility in the neighborhood had repudiated his wife for so many years, this concession so n.o.bly made by the old countess, was an opening of good fortune which promised a solution of all these difficulties. It had, in truth, lifted a heavy burden from his life.

With the letter in his hand Lord Hope went to his wife's dressing-room, where he found her, hollow-eyed, and so nervous that a faint cry broke from her as he entered the room.

She felt the loss of her brother terribly, notwithstanding what seemed to be a ready concession to the harsh treatment he received, and her sleep, as we know, had been restless and broken in the night.

She was cold and s.h.i.+vering, though the weather was warm, and had wrapped a shawl, full of richly-tinted colors, over her morning-dress, and sat cowering under it like some newly-caught animal.

Lord Hope felt that his inhospitable expulsion of her brother, and the cruel conversation that had followed it, was the cause of this nervous depression, and his heart smote him. With the letter open in his hand he went up to her chair, and bending over it, kissed Rachael on the forehead.

A smile broke over those gloomy features; the heavy eyes lighted up; she lifted her face to his.

"Oh, you do love me--you do love me!"

"My poor Rachael! how can you permit words that sprang out of the gloomy memories which Hepworth brought to trouble you so? Come, smile again, for I have good news for you--for us all."

"Good news! Is Hepworth coming back?"

"Forget Hepworth just now, and read that."

Lady Hope took the letter and read it through. When she gave it back, her face was radiant.

"At last--at last!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Norton, this will lift me to my proper place by your side. Now, now I will make you proud of me! These patricians shall learn that all great gifts do not spring from birth--that genius has a n.o.bility which can match that given by kings."

Rachael started up in her excitement, flung the shawl away, and stood a priestess where she had just cowered like a wounded animal.

"Now we shall be all the world to each other, and walk through this proud life of yours, fairly mated. Great Heavens! after a night like the last, who could have expected such a morning? But Clara, you will let her go?"

"She is preparing to go now."

"My girl--my bright, beautiful girl! She has always been the angel in my path. But for her, this might never have come. But we cannot give her up--not entirely. You will not consent to that?"

"If we do, it will be only for a time, Rachael. The countess is very old."

"Yes, it will not be for long, and we can trust Clara. I will go to her now. She will need my help, and every minute she stays under this roof is a grain of gold which I must not lose. Oh! Norton, this is glorious news that you have brought me! What can have wrought this change in the old countess? I am going to Clara now."

As Lady Hope opened the door, Clara stood upon the threshold, ready for her journey. She knew that this letter was the first that her father had received from Lady Ca.r.s.et for years, and was curious to know its meaning. She could not remember when Lady Ca.r.s.et's name had been spoken in that house without bitterness, and was astonished to hear the cheerful animation with which it was spoken now.

"Am I really to go, papa? Do you wish it? Is mamma Rachael willing? Let me read the letter, please."

Lord Hope gave her the letter, and replied as she was reading it:

"Yes, my child, it is but right. The old lady is your nearest female relative."

Here Clara reached out her hand to Lady Hope, but kept her eyes on the letter, reading and listening at the same time.

"And you think it best, mamma?" inquired Clara, folding the letter.

"What a delicate, stately hand the old lady writes! You don't object?"

"Object, Clara! No, no. I long to part with you, for the first time in my life."

"In some things," said Lord Hope, "the old lady has been cruelly dealt by. Say this from me, Clara. The concessions must not rest all on one side."

"Of course, papa; I will tell her, if you desire it. But why did she not ask you and mamma at once? It is awful lonesome going to that grim old castle by myself."

"It is only for a few weeks," answered Rachael, hastily. "But, dear child, you must not let this old lady stand between you and us. She may have more to give, but no one on earth can ever love you like us."

"Don't I know it? Is that the carriage? Dear me, how things are rushed forward this morning! Am I all right, mamma Rachael? Kiss me once more.

What! tears in your eyes? I won't go a step if you don't stop crying!

What do I care for Lady Ca.r.s.et, a cross old thing, and old as the hills!"

"Clara, I hear the carriage."

"So do I, papa; but what's the use of hurrying?"

"I wish your grandmother to know that I hold no enmity by my promptness in sending you."

"Oh, is that it? Well, good-bye, mamma Rachael. One more kiss--again--again! Now, good-bye in earnest."

Lady Hope left the room to hide her tears. Clara followed her father to the carriage.

"Poor, poor mamma! How pale and ill she was last night! Oh, papa, do kiss her good-bye for me just once again, when you go back."

Lord Hope turned a smiling look upon the girl, and she added, half in excuse:

"It breaks my heart to leave her so."

Lord Hope did not answer, but folded a cloak around his daughter, helped her into the carriage, and took a seat himself.

Margaret was already seated by the coachman.

"I understand well enough that I am not to travel with my young lady on her journey," she said; "but, so far as her way lies toward London, I am going. My sister wants me there, and I do just as lief be in a tomb as stay at Oakhurst when Lady Clara is away. So, as she is willing, I shall just leave her at the junction, and go up to London. That I can do in spite of the crabbed old thing at Houghton, who wants her at first all to herself."

This was said in confidence to the coachman, who muttered something under his breath about feeling uncommonly lonesome when Mistress Margaret was away from Oakhurst.

Directly after this the carriage drew up at the station, where a grim-looking woman of fifty stood ready to receive the young lady from the hands of her father.

It was not often that Lord Hope was known to exhibit any violent emotion; but Clara felt that he gave way a little when she threw her arms around his neck in parting--and Badger, after he opened the gate to let his master pa.s.s through, observed to Jules that something out of the common must be going on up yonder, for all night people had been going in and out like ghosts, and the master seemed like another man.

CHAPTER XIX.

AFTER THE FAILURE.

When Caroline reached home, after that involuntary retreat from the theatre, she went to her own room with Eliza, and falling upon the bed, lay perfectly still, so exhausted and crushed, that she scarcely breathed. She had disgraced herself, and she had seen _him_.