Читать книгу The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals - Ann S. Stephens - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Lady Hope had retreated into her own room, for the absence of her husband was beginning to prey upon her; and she was all the more sad and lonely because she knew in her heart that the two persons whom she saw together in the moonlight were thinking, perhaps talking, of the love which she must never know in its fullness again—which she had never known as good and contented wives experience it.

Indeed, love is the one passion that can neither be wrested from fate or bribed into life. It must spring up from the heart, like a wild flower from seed God plants in virgin forest soil, to bring contentment with its blossoming. The sunshine which falls upon it must be pure and bright from heaven. Plant it in an atmosphere of sin, and that which might have been a holy passion becomes a torment, bitter in proportion to its strength.

Ah! how keenly Rachael Closs felt all this as she sat there alone in her bower room, looking wistfully out upon those two lovers, both so dear to her that her very soul yearned with sympathy for the innocent love she had never known, and never could know upon earth! Yet, dear as these two persons were to her, she would have seen that fair girl and the manly form beside her shrouded in their coffins, if that could have brought back one short twelve-months of the passionate insanity which had won Lord Hope to cast aside all restraint and fiercely wrench apart the most sacred ties in order to make her his wife. She asked for impossibilities. Love born in tumult and founded in selfishness must have its reactions, and between those two the shadow of a wronged woman was forever falling; and, struggle as they would, it grew colder and darker every year. But upon these two persons time operated differently. The wild impetuosity of his character had hardened into reserve. His ambition was to stand high among men of his own class—to be known as a statesman of power in the realm.

But, in all this Rachael knew that she was a drawback and a heavy weight upon his aspirations. Was it that she was less bright or beautiful? No, no. Her mirror contradicted the one doubt, and the power which she felt in her own genius rebuked the other.

Once give her a foothold among the men and women who had so persistently considered her as an intruder, and the old vigor and pride of her life would come back with it: the idolatry which had induced that infatuated man to overlook these stumbling blocks to his pride and impediments to his ambition would surely revive.

"Let him see me at court; let him compare me with the women whose cutting disdain wounds me to death, because it disturbs him; let him place me where this intellect can have free scope, and never on this earth was there a woman who would work out a husband's greatness so thoroughly."

In the first years of her marriage, Rachael would say these things to herself, in the bitterness of her humiliation and disappointment. Others, less beautiful and lacking her talent, had been again and again introduced from lower ranks into the nobility of England, accepted by its queen, and honored by society. Why was she alone so persistently excluded? The answer was always ready, full of bitterness. The enmity of old Lady Carset had done it all. It was her influence that had closed the queen's drawing-room against Lord Hope's second wife. It was her charge regarding the Carset diamonds that had made Rachael shrink from wearing the family jewels, which justly belonged to her as Lord Hope's property. It was this which made her so reluctant to pass the boundaries of Oakhurst. It was this that embittered her whole life, and rendered it one long humiliation.

These reflections served to concentrate the hopes and affections of this woman so entirely around one object, that her love for Hope, which had been an overwhelming passion, grew into that idolatry no man, whose life was in the world, could answer to, for isolation was necessary to a feeling of such cruel intensity.

As the hope of sharing his life and his honors gave way, doubts, suspicions, and anxieties grew out of her inordinate love, and the greatest sorrow to her on earth was the absence of her husband. It was not alone that she missed his company, which was, in fact, all the world to her; but, as he went more and more into the world, a terrible dread seized upon her. What if he found, among all the highly born women who received him so graciously, some one who, in the brightness of a happy life, might make him regret the sacrifice he had made for her, the terrible scenes he had gone through in order to obtain her? What if he might yet come to wish her dead, as she sometimes almost wished herself!

In this way the love, which had flowed like a lava stream through that woman's life, engendered its own curse, and her mind was continually haunted by apprehensions which had no foundation, in fact, for, to this day, Lord Hope loved her with deeper passion than he had ever given to that better woman; but with him the distractions of statesmanship, and the allurements of social life, were a resource from intense thought, while she had so little beside himself.

She had striven to bind him to her by kindness to his child, until the bright girl became, as it were, a part of himself, with whom it would be death to part.

Is it strange, then, that this dream of uniting Clara to her only brother should have been very sweet to the unhappy woman?

Lord Hope had been absent a whole month now, and even with the excitement of her brother's presence, Rachael had found those four weeks terribly long.

What would she do if that fair girl were separated from her entirely? Then solitude would be terrible indeed!

But another anxiety came upon her by degrees. In what way would her husband receive Hepworth Closs? How would he accept the position the two persons out yonder were drifting into? Would he consent to a union which even her partiality admitted as unsuitable, or would he, in his cold, calm way, plant his foot upon their hearts and crush her fond desire out of existence?

As Lady Hope pondered over these thoughts in silence and semi-darkness, Clara came through the window, in great excitement.

"Oh! mamma Rachael! He is going away from us. He told me so just now; but you will not let him. You will never let him!"

Lady Hope started out of her reverie.

"Going away? Where? Who? I cannot understand, Clara!"

"Hepworth—Mr. Closs, I mean. Oh, mamma! he threatens to leave us here all alone by ourselves—the most cruel thing that ever was heard of. I thought how angry you would be, and came at once. You can do anything with him—he loves you so dearly. Let him threaten if he likes, but you will not let him go. You will tell him how foolish, how cruel it is to leave us, while papa is away. Oh! mamma Rachael, you can do anything! Do this! Do this!"

"But why, darling—why do you care so much?"

"Why! why!" Clara threw back her head till the curls waved away from her shoulders, then a burning crimson came over her, the shamed face drooped again, and she answered: "I don't know—I don't know."

Rachael bent her face till it almost touched that hot cheek, and whispered:

"Is it that you love him, my own Clara?"

Again Clara lifted her face. A strange light came upon it. Her lips were parted, her blue eyes opened wide.

"Love him—love him? Oh! mamma Rachael, is this love?"

Rachael smiled, and kissed that earnest face, holding it between both hands.

"I think it is, darling. Nay, I am sure that you love him, and that he loves you."

"Loves me? Then why does he go away? I should think so but for that."

"Because of that, I am afraid, Clara."

"Loves me, and goes away because he loves me!" said the girl, bewildered. "I don't understand it."

"There may be many reasons, Clara."

"I can't think of one. Indeed I can't. Papa never was cruel."

"He may not think it quite honorable to let—make you love him, when your father knows nothing about it."

"But papa would not mind."

"Hepworth does not know that; nor do I. Your father is a very proud man, Clara, and has a right to look high, for his only child."

"What then? Mr. Closs is handsomer, brighter, more—more everything that is grand and royal, than any nobleman I have ever seen. What can papa say against that?"

"But he is a man of no family position—simply Hepworth Closs, nothing more. We can scarcely call him an Englishman."

"What then, mamma? He is a gentleman. Who, in all this neighborhood, can compare with him?"

"No one! no one!" answered Rachael, with enthusiasm. "There is but one man on all the earth so far above the rest; but persons who look upon birth and wealth as everything, may not see him with our eyes, my Clara. Then there is another objection. Hepworth is over thirty."

"Mamma Rachael, you know well enough that I never did like boys," said Clara, with childish petulance.

"And compared with the great landed noblemen of England, he is poor."

"Not so, mamma Rachael. He has made lots and lots of money out in those countries where they dig gold from the earth. He described it all to me, about washing dirt in pans, and crushing rocks in great machines, and picking up pure gold in nuggets—why, he found an awful big one himself. I daresay he has got more real money than papa. I do, indeed."

Lady Hope sighed. Perhaps she thought so too; for Oakhurst was closely entailed, and ready money was sometimes scarce in that sumptuous dwelling.

"And then how much shall I have? Let me ask that of papa."

"But you will inherit something with the Carset title in spite of your grandmother."

"Yes, I know. An enormous old castle with just land enough to keep it in repair. That isn't much to boast of, or make a man like Mr. Closs feel modest when he thinks of me."

"But the title. Is it nothing to be a peeress in your own right?"

"I would rather he were an earl, and I a peeress in his right."

"You are a strange girl, Clara."

"But you love me if I am, mamma Rachael."

"Love you, child! You will never know how much!"

"And if it so happened that he did really like me, you wouldn't go against it?"

"But what would my will be opposed to that of your father?"

"Only this—you can do anything with papa. Don't I remember when I was a little girl?"

Rachael sighed heavily.

"That was a long time ago, Clara, and childish wants are easily satisfied."

Clara threw both arms around her stepmother's neck and kissed her.

"Never mind if he is a little stubborn now and then; you can manage him, yet, mamma. Only, don't let Mr. Closs do that horrid thing. I never could ride alone with the ponies after the last three weeks. You don't know how instructive he is! Why, we have travelled all over the world together, and now he wants to throw me overboard; but you won't let him do that, mamma Rachael. What need is there of any thought about what may come? We are all going on beautifully, now, and, I dare say, papa is enjoying himself shooting grouse. When he comes back and sees how much Mr. Closs is like you, everything will be right. Only, mamma Rachael, tell me one thing. Are you sure that—that he isn't thinking me a child, and likes me only for that? This very night he called me 'my child,' and said he was going. That made me wretchedly angry, so I came in here. Now tell me—"

"Hush! hush! I hear his step on the terrace."

The girl darted off like a swallow. For the whole universe she could not have met Hepworth there in the presence of a third person.

As she left the room, Closs entered it.

"Rachael," he said, standing before his sister, in the square of moonlight cast like a block of silver through the window, "I have been weak enough to love this girl whom we both knew as an infant, when I was old enough to be a worse man than I shall ever be again; and, still more reprehensible, I have told her of it within the last half-hour; a pleasant piece of business, which Lord Hope will be likely to relish. Don't you think so?"

"I do not know—I cannot tell. Hope loves his daughter, and has never yet denied anything to her. He may not like it at first; but—oh! Hepworth, I know almost as little of my husband's feelings or ideas as you can."

"But you will not think that I have done wrong?"

"What, in loving Clara? What man on earth could help it?"

"Well, I do love her, and I think she loves me."

"I know she does."

"Thank you, sister; but she is such a child."

"She is woman enough to be firm and faithful."

"You approve it all, then?"

Hepworth sat down by his sister and threw his arm around her.

"My poor Rachael! how I wish this, or anything else, could make you really happy!"

She did not answer; but he felt her form trembling under his arm.

"But I only see in it new troubles for you and dishonor for myself. There is really but one way for me to act—I must leave this place."

"And Clara? After what you have said, that would, indeed, be dishonorable."

"She is so young; the pain would all go with me. In a few months I shall probably have scarcely a place in her memory."

"You wrong the dearest and finest girl in the whole world when you say that, Hepworth! To desert her now would be profound cruelty."

"Then in what way am I to act?"

"Write to Lord Hope; tell him the truth—that you have won the respect of men by your actions, and have, with your own energies, acquired wealth enough to make you a fair match in that respect for his daughter. Make no allusion to the past; he is proud, and terribly sensitive on that point, and might suspect you of making claims to equality because of it."

Hepworth smiled as he stood before her in the moonlight, and she saw it. Wide travel and experience among men had led him to think that, after all, the highest level of humanity did not always range with hereditary titles; but he only said, very calmly:

"Lord Hope cannot accuse me justly of aspiring where he is concerned."

Rachael felt the hot crimson leap to her face. Did Hepworth dare to equal himself with Lord Hope, the one great idol of her own perverted life? She answered, angrily, forgetting that the sinner was her only brother:

"Lord Hope need have no fear that any man living will so aspire."

"Poor foolish girl!" said Hepworth, feeling the flash of her black eyes, and touched with pity, rather than anger, by her quick resentment. "Do not let us quarrel about Hope. If he makes you happy, I have nothing to say against him."

"Happy! happy!"

Rachael shrank back in her seat, uttering these two words in a voice so full of pathetic sorrow, that it brought the pain of coming tears into Hepworth's eyes. He was glad to turn the subject.

"Then you are not willing that I should go away?"

"It would almost kill me to lose you again, Hepworth."

The young man felt that she spoke the truth; the very tones of her voice thrilled him with a tender conviction.

"I will write to Hope," he said; "it must end in that or absence. It shall not be my fault, Rachael, if I ever go far away from you again."

Lady Hope took her brother's hand between hers.

"That is kind, and I really think the only wise thing to be done," she said. "Hope knows that you were born a gentleman."

"And having married into the family himself, can hardly say that it is not good enough for his daughter. This is answer enough for all objections of that kind. In fact, Rachael, I begin to think we can make out a tolerable claim. Now that we have decided on the letter, I will write it at once, here, if you will let me order more lights."

Hepworth rang the bell as he spoke, and directly wax candles were burning on the ebony desk at which Lady Hope was accustomed to write.

Having made up his mind, Closs was not the man to hesitate in doing the thing he had resolved on. He spread a sheet of paper before him, and began his letter at once. Rachael watched him earnestly as his pen flew over the paper.

For the first time she realized, with a pang of apprehension, the step she was so blindly encouraging. What if Lord Hope took offense at the letter, or should condemn her for the intimacy which had led to it? She was afraid of her husband, and each movement of Hepworth's pen struck her with dread. Had she, indeed, laid herself open to the wrath of a man, who was so terrible in his anger, that it made even her brave heart cower?

"There, it is finished," said Hepworth, addressing his letter, and flinging down the pen. "Now let us throw aside care, and be happy as we can till the answer comes."

Lady Hope sighed heavily, and, reaching forth her hand, bade him good-night.