The Shadow of a Sin Part 4

"Does he know what you intend?" she asked half shyly.

"Not yet. Of course, in families like our own, marriages are not conducted as with the plebeian cla.s.ses; with us they are affairs of state, and require no little diplomacy and tact."

"Was my father's a diplomatic marriage?" she asked.

"No," replied Lady Vaughan, "your father pleased himself; but then, remember, he was in a position to do so. He was an only son, and heir of Queen's Chase."

"And am I to be taken to this gentleman; if he likes me he is to marry me; if not, what then?"

The scornful sarcasm of her voice was quite lost on Lady Vaughan.

"There is no need for impatience. Even then some other plan will suggest itself to us. But I think there is no fear of failure--Mr. Darcy will be sure to like you. You are very good-looking, you have the true Vaughan face, and, thanks to the care with which you have been educated, your mind is not full of nonsense, as is the case with some girls. I thought it better to tell you of this arrangement, so that you may accustom your mind to the thought of it. Everything being favorable, we shall start for Bergheim in the middle of August, and then I shall hope to see matters brought to a sensible conclusion."

"It will not be of any consequence whether I like this Mr. Darcy or not--will it, Lady Vaughan?"

"You must try to cultivate a kindly liking for him, my dear. All the nonsense of love and romance may be dispensed with. Well brought up as you have been, you will find no difficulty in carrying out our wishes.

Now, draw that blind a little closer, my love, and leave me--I am sleepy. Do not waste your time--go at once to the piano."

CHAPTER IV.

Having acquainted her young relative with the prospective arrangements she had made for her, Lady Vaughan composed herself to sleep, and Hyacinth quietly left the room. She dared not stop to think until she was outside the door, in the free, fresh air; the walls of the old house seemed to stifle her. Her young soul was awakened, but it rose in a hot glow of rebellion against this new device of fate. She to be taken abroad and offered meekly to this gentleman! If he liked her they were to be married; if not, with the sense of failure upon her, she would have to return to the Chase. The thought was intolerable.

Was this the promised romance of her life? "It is not fair," cried the girl pa.s.sionately, as she paced the narrow garden paths--"it is not just. Everything has liberty, love, and happiness--why should not I? The birds love each other, the flowers are happy in the sun--why must I live without love or happiness, or brightness? I protest against my fate."

Were all the thousand tender and beautiful longings of her life to be thus rudely treated? Was all the poetry and romance she had dreamed of to end in "cultivating a kindly liking" and a diplomatic marriage? Oh, no, it could not be! She shed pa.s.sionate tears. She prayed, in her wild fas.h.i.+on, pa.s.sionate prayers. Better for her a thousand times had she been commonplace, unromantic, prosaic--better that the flush of youth and the sweet longings of life had not been hers. Then a break came in the clouds--a change that was to be most fatal to her. One of the families with whom Sir Arthur and Lady Vaughan were most intimate was that of old Colonel Lennox, of Oakton Park.

Colonel Lennox and his wife were both old; but one day they received a letter from Mrs. Lennox, their sister-in-law, who resided in London, saying how very pleased she should be to pay them a visit with her son Claude. Mrs. Lennox was very rich. Claude was heir to a large fortune.

Still she thought Oakton Park would be a handsome addition, and it would be just as well to cultivate the affection of the childless uncle.

Mrs. Lennox and Claude came to Oakton. Solemn dinner-parties, at which the young man with difficulty concealed his annoyance, were given in their honor, and at one of these entertainments Hyacinth and Claude met.

He fell in love with her.

In those days she was beautiful as the fairest dream of poet or artist.

In the fresh spring-tide of her young loveliness, she was something to see and remember. She was tall, her figure slender and girlish, full of graceful lines and curves that gave promise of magnificent womanhood.

Her face was of oval shape; the features were exquisite, the eyes of the darkest blue, with long lashes; her lips were fresh and sweet; her mouth was the most beautiful feature in her beautiful face--it was sweet and sensitive, yet at times slightly scornful; the teeth were white and regular; the chin was faultless, with a pretty dimple in it.

It was not merely the physical beauty, the exquisite features and glorious coloring that attracted; there were poetry, eloquence, and pa.s.sion within these. Looking at her, one knew instinctively that she was not of the common order--that something of the poet and genius was there. Her brow was fair and rounded at the temples, giving a great expression of ideality to her face; her fair hair, soft and s.h.i.+ning, seemed to crown the graceful head like a golden diadem.

Claude Lennox, in his half-selfish, half-chivalrous way, fell in love with her. He said something to Lady Vaughan about her one day, and she gave him to understand that her granddaughter was engaged. She did not tell him to whom, nor did she say much about it; but the few words piqued Claude, who had never been thwarted in his life.

On the first day they met, his mother had warned him not to fall in love with the beautiful girl, who might be an heiress or might have nothing--to remember that in his position he could marry whom he would, and not to throw himself away.

Lady Vaughan, too, on her side, seemed much disposed to forbid him even to speak to Hyacinth. If he proposed calling at Queen's Chase, she either deferred his visit or took good care that Hyacinth should not be in the way; and all this she did, as she believed, unperceived. It was evident that Sir Arthur also was not pleased; though the old gentleman was too courtly and polished to betray his feeling openly in the matter.

He did not like Claude Lennox, and the young man felt it. One day he met the two young people together in a sequestered part of the Chase grounds, and though he did not utter his displeasure, the stern, angry look that he gave Claude, fully betrayed it. Hyacinth, whose glance had fallen to the ground in a sudden accession of shyness that she scarce understood, at her grandfather's approach, did not see his set, stern face. Nor did Sir Arthur speak to her of the matter. On talking it over to Lady Vaughan, the two old people concluded that a show of open opposition might awaken a favor toward Claude in the young girl's heart to which it was yet a stranger, and they contented themselves with throwing every possible obstacle in the way of the young people's intercourse. This was, in this case, mistaken policy. If the old gentleman had spoken, he might have saved Hyacinth from unspeakable misery, and his proud old name from the painful shadow of disgrace that a childish folly was to bring upon it. The young girl stood greatly in awe of her grandfather, but she respected him, and in a way loved him, through her fears. And she was now being led, step by step, into folly, through her own ignorance of its nature.

Claude Lennox was piqued. He was young, rich, and handsome; he had been eagerly sought by fas.h.i.+onable mothers. He knew that he could marry Lady Constance Granville any day that he liked; he had more than a suspicion that the pretty, coquettish, fas.h.i.+onable young widow, Mrs. Delamere, liked him; Lady Crown Harley had almost offered him her daughter. Was he to be defied and set at naught in this way--he, a Lennox, come of a race who had never failed in love or war? No, it should never be; he would win Hyacinth in spite of all. He disarmed suspicion by ceasing, when they met, to pay her any particular attention. His lady-mother congratulated herself; she retired to London, leaving her son at Oakton Park. He said his visit was so pleasant that he could not bring it to a close. The colonel, delighted with his nephew, entreated him to stay, and Claude said, smiling to himself, that he had a fair field and all to himself.

His love for Hyacinth was half-selfish, half-chivalrous. It was pique and something like resentment that made him first of all determined to woo her, but he soon became so interested, that he believed his life depended on winning her. She was so different from other girls. She was child, poet, and woman. She had the brightest and fairest of fancies.

She spoke as he had never heard any one else speak--as though her lips had been touched with divine fire.

Fortune favored him. He went one morning to the Chase, and found Sir Arthur and Lady Vaughan at home--alone. He did not mention Hyacinth's name; but as he was going out, he gave one of the footmen a sovereign and learned from him that Miss Vaughan was walking alone in the wood.

She had complained of headache, and "my lady" had sent her out into the fresh air.

Of course he followed her and found her. He made such good use of the hour that succeeded, that she promised to meet him again. He was very careful to keep her attention fixed on the poetry of such meetings; he never hinted at the wrong of concealment, the dishonor of any thing clandestine, the beauty of obedience; he talked to her only of love, and of how he loved her and longed to make her his wife. She was very young, very impressionable, very romantic; he succeeded completely in blinding her to the harm and wrong she was doing; but he could not win from her any acknowledgement of her love. She enjoyed the break in the dull monotony of her life. She enjoyed the excitement of having to find time to meet him. She liked listening to him; she liked to hear him praise her beauty, and rave about his devotion to her. But did she love him?

Not if what the poets wrote was true--not if love be such as they describe.

CHAPTER V.

So for three or four weeks of the beautiful summer, this little love story went on. Claude Lennox was _au fait_ as to all the pretty wiles and arts of love, he made a post-office of the trunk of a grand old oak-tree--a trunk that was covered with ivy; he used to place letters there every day, and Hyacinth would fetch and answer them. These letters won her more than any spoken words; they were eloquently written and full of poetry. She could read them and muse over them; their poetry remained with her.

When she was talking to him a sense of unreality used to come over her--a vague, uncertain, dreamy kind of conviction that in some way he was not true; that he was saying more than he meant, or that he had said the same things before and knew them all by heart. His letters won her.

She answered them, and in those answers found some vent for the romance and imagination that had never had an outlet before. Claude Lennox, as he read them, wondered at her.

"The girl is a genius," he said; "if she were to take to writing, she would make the world talk of her. I have read all the poetry of the day, but I have never read anything like these lines."

Claude Lennox had been a successful man. He had not been brought up to any profession--there was no need for it; he was to inherit a large fortune from his mother, and he had already one of his own. He had lived in the very heart of society; he had been courted, admired and flattered as long as he could remember. Bright-eyed girls had smiled on him, and fair faces grown the fairer for his coming. He had had many loves, but none of them had been in earnest. He liked Hyacinth Vaughan better than any one he had ever met. If her friends had smiled upon him and everything had been _couleur de rose_, he would have loved lightly, have laughed lightly, and have ridden away. But because, for the first time in his life, he was opposed and thwarted, frowned upon instead of being met with eagerness, he vowed that he would win her. No one should say Claude Lennox had loved in vain.

He was a strange mixture of vanity and generosity, of selfishness and chivalry. He loved her as much as it was in his nature to love any one.

He felt for her; the descriptions she gave him of her life, its dull monotony, its dreary gloom, touched his heart. Then, too, his vanity was gratified; he knew that if he took such a peerlessly beautiful girl to London as his wife, she would be one of the most brilliant queens of society. He knew that she would create an almost unrivalled sensation.

So love, vanity, generosity, selfishness, chivalry, all combined, made him resolve to win her.

He knew that if he were to go to Queen's Chase and ask permission to woo her, it would be refused him--she would be kept away from him and hurried away to Germany. That was the honest, honorable course, but he felt sure it was hopeless to pursue it. Man of the world as he was, the first idea of an elopement startled him; then he became accustomed to it, and began at last to think an elopement would be quite a romance and a sensation. So, by degrees he broke it to her. She was startled at first, and then, after a time, became accustomed to it. It would be very easy, soon over, and when they were once married his mother would say nothing; if the Vaughans were wise, they too would be willing to forgive and say nothing.

He found Hyacinth so simple, so innocent and credulous, that he had no great difficulty in persuading her. If any thought of remorse came to him--that, as the stronger of the two he was betraying his trust--he quickly put the disagreeable reflection away--he intended to be very kind to her after they were married, and to make her very happy.

So he waited in some anxiety for the signal. It was not a matter of life or death with him; neither did he consider it as such; but he was very anxious, and hoped she would consent. The library window could be seen from the park; he had but to walk across it, and then he could see.

Claude Lennox was almost ashamed to find how his heart beat, and how nervously his eyes sought the window.

"I did not think I could care about anything so much," he said to himself; "I begin to respect myself for being capable of such devotion."

It was early on Wednesday morning, but he had not been able to sleep.

Would she go, or would she refuse? How many hours of suspense must he pa.s.s before he knew? The sun was s.h.i.+ning gayly, the dew lay on the gra.s.s--it was useless to imagine that she would be thinking of her flowers; yet he could not leave the place--he must know.

At one moment his hopes were raised to the highest point--it was not likely that she would refuse. She would never be so foolish as to choose a life of gloom and wretchedness instead of the golden future he had offered her. Then again his heart sunk. An elopement! It was such a desperate step; she would surely hesitate before taking it. He walked to the end of the park, and then he returned. His heart beat so violently when he raised his eyes that it seemed to him as if he could hear it--a dull red flush rose to his face, his lips quivered. He had won--the white flowers were there!

There was no one to see him, but he raised his Glengarry cap from his head and waved it in the air.

"I have won," he said to himself; "now for my arrangements."

He went back to Oakton Park in a fever of anxiety; he telegraphed from Oakton Station to the kind old aunt who had never refused him a favor, asking her, for particular reasons which he would explain afterward, to meet him at Euston Square at 6 A.M. on Thursday.