Charlotte's Inheritance Part 17

"If he wishes it."

"He does wish it. Ah, how he wishes it! You will come?"

"If Mrs. Sheldon and Charlotte can spare me."

"They cannot spare you. No one can spare you. That cannot be. It is amongst the things that are impossible. But they will have pity upon--your father, and they will let you come."

"Please ask the cabman to start. Indeed, I shall be late. Good night, M. Len.o.ble."

"Good night."

He took her hand in his, and kissed it, with the grace of a Bayard. He loved her, and took no trouble to conceal his pa.s.sion. No shadow of doubt darkened that bright horizon to which M. Len.o.ble looked with hopeful eyes. He loved this penniless, motherless girl, as it was in the blood of the Len.o.bles to love the poor and the helpless; especially when poverty and helplessness presented themselves in the guise of youth and beauty.

He loved her, and she would love him. But why not? He was ten years her senior, but that makes nothing. His auburn hair and beard, in the style of Henry the Great, could show no streak of grey. His eyes had the brightness of one-and-twenty; for the eyes of a man whose soul preserves its youthfulness will keep their clear l.u.s.tre for half a century. The tall figure, straight as a dart; the frank handsome face which M. Len.o.ble saw in the gla.s.s when he made his toilet, were not calculated to dishearten a hopeful lover; and Gustave, by nature sanguine, enjoyed his dream of happiness, untroubled by one morbid apprehension.

He loved her, and he would ask her for his wife. She would accept his offer; her father would rejoice in so fortunate an alliance; her friends of Bayswater would felicitate a change so desirable. And when he returned to Normandy he would take her with him, and say to his children, "Behold your mother!" And then the great rambling mansion of Cotenoir would a.s.sume a home-like aspect. The ponderous old furniture would be replaced by lightsome appointments of modern fas.h.i.+on; except, of course, in the grand drawing-room, where there were tapestries said to be from the designs of Boucher, and chairs and sofas in the true Louis Quinze style, of immovable bulkiness.

There was but one trifling hitch in the whole scheme of happiness--Diana was a Protestant. Ah, but what then! A creature so sweet, so n.o.ble, could not long remain the slave of Anglican heresy. A little talk with Cydalise, a week's "retreat" at the Sacre Coeur, and the thing would be done. The dear girl would renounce her errors, and enter the bosom of the Mother Church. Pouff! M. Len.o.ble blew the little difficulty away from his finger-tips, and then wafted a kiss from the same finger-tips to his absent beloved.

"And this n.o.ble heart warned me against her own father!" M. Len.o.ble said to himself, as he walked towards the hotel at Blackfriars where he had taken up his abode, quite unconscious that the foot of Blackfriars Bridge was not the centre of West End London. "How n.o.ble, how disinterested!

Poor old man! He is, no doubt, a speculator--something even of an Adventurer. What then? He shall have an apartment at Cotenoir, his place at the family table, his _fauteuil_ by the hearth; and there he can do no harm."

There was a strange sentiment in Diana's mind after this evening's conversation with Gustave Len.o.ble. To feel herself beloved, to know that there was some one creature in the wide crowded world interested in, nay, even attached to her, was a mystery, a surprise, and in some sort a source of pleasure to her. That Gustave Len.o.ble could ever be any nearer to her than he was at the present time did not occur to her as being within the limits of possibility. She had thrust Valentine from her heart, but the empty chamber could receive no new tenant. It was not swept and garnished; nay, indeed, it was sadly littered with the shreds and patches left by the late occupant. But, while this was so, to know that she could be loved was in some manner sweet to her.

"Ah, now I know that the poet is right," she said to herself. "There is no creature so desolate but some heart responds unto its own. And I have found the generous responsive heart that can pity and love me because I seem so sorely to need love and pity. All my life--my blank, empty life--I will remember and be grateful to him, the first good man who ever called my father friend; the first of all mankind who thought this poor hand worthy to be lifted to his lips."

CHAPTER IV.

SHARPER THAN A SERPENT'S TOOTH.

Having pledged herself to visit Omega Street on Thursday, Diana considered herself bound to perform that promise. She felt, however, that there was some touch of absurdity in the position, for to keep a promise so made was in a manner to keep an appointment with M. Len.o.ble.

"I dare say he has a habit of falling in love with every young woman he meets," she thought, when she considered his conduct from a more prosaic standpoint than the grateful enthusiasm his generous sympathy had at first awakened in her mind. "I have heard that it is a Frenchman's faculty to consider himself irresistible, and to avow his adoration for a new divinity every week. And I was so foolish as to fancy there was a depth of feeling in his tone and manner! I am sure he is all that is good and generous; but the falling in love is no doubt a national failing."

She remembered the impertinent advances of divers unknown foreigners whom she had encountered on pier or _digue_, kursaal or beach, in the frequently unprotected hours of her continental wanderings.

She had not seen the best side of the foreign mind in her character of unattended and doubtfully attired English demoiselle. She knew that Gustave Len.o.ble was of a very different stamp from those specimens of the genus tiger whose impertinent admiration had often wounded and distressed her; but she was inclined to attribute the fault of shallowness to a nature so frank and buoyant as that of her father's friend.

She walked from Bayswater to Chelsea on the appointed Thursday, for the cost of frequent journeys in cabs was more than her purse could supply.

The walk across the Park was pleasant even in the bleak March weather, and she entered the little parlour in Omega Street with the bloom of damask roses upon her cheeks.

"How do you do, papa dear?" she began, as she came into the dusky room; but the figure sitting in her father's accustomed place was not that of her father. It was M. Len.o.ble, who rose to welcome her.

"Is papa worse?" she asked, surprised by the Captain's absence.

"On the contrary, he is better, and has gone out in a hired carriage for a breath of fresh air. I persuaded him to go. He will be back very shortly."

"I wrote to tell him I should be here to-day, but I am very glad he has gone out, for I am sure the air will do him good. Was he well wrapped up, do you know, M. Len.o.ble?"

"Enveloped in railway-rugs and shawls to his very nose. I arranged all that with my own hands. He looked like an amba.s.sador from all the Russias."

"How kind of you to think of such things!" said Diana gratefully.

"And tell me why should I not think of such things? Do you imagine that it is not a pleasure to me to wait upon your father--for your sake?"

There was some amount of awkwardness in this kind of thing. Diana busied herself with the removal of her hat and jacket, which she laid neatly upon a stony-hearted horsehair sofa. After doing this she placed herself near the window, whence she contemplated the dusky street, appearing much interested in the movements of the lamp lighter.

"What an admirable way they have of lighting the lamps now," she remarked, with the conversational brilliance which usually marks this kind of situation; "how much more convenient it must be than the old method with the ladder, you know!"

"Yes, I have no doubt," said Gustave, bringing himself to her side with a couple of steps, and planting himself deliberately in a chair next to hers; "but don't you think, as I start for Normandy to-morrow, we might talk of something more interesting than the lamplighter, Miss Paget?"

"I am ready to talk of anything you like," replied Miss Paget, with that charming a.s.sumption of unconsciousness which every woman can command on these occasions.

"You are very good. Do you know that when I persuaded your father to go out for an airing, I was prompted by a motive so selfish as to render the proceeding quite diabolical? Don't be alarmed! The doctor gave his permission for the airing, or I should not have attempted such a thing.

Hypocrisy I am capable of, but not a.s.sa.s.sination. You cannot imagine the diplomacy which I exhibited; and all to what end? Can you imagine that?"

"No, indeed."

"That I might secure one half-hour's uninterrupted talk with you; and, unhappily, you are so late that I expect your father's return every minute. He was to be back again before dusk, and the appearance of the lamplighter demonstrates that the dusk has come. I have so much to say, and so little time to say it; so much, Diane--"

She started as he called her thus, as if in that moment of surprise she would have risen from her chair by his side. She knew what was coming, and having expected nothing so desperate, knew not how to arrest the confession that she would fain have avoided hearing. M. Len.o.ble laid his hand firmly on hers.

"So much, Diane; and yet so little, that all can be told in three words.

I love you."

"M. Len.o.ble!"

"Ah, you are surprised, you wonder, you look at me with eyes of sweet amazement! Dear angel, do you think it is possible to see you and not to love you? To see you once is to respect, to admire, to bow the knee before beauty and goodness; but to see you many times, as I have done, the patient consoler of an invalid and somewhat difficult father--ah, my sweet love, who is there so hard amongst mankind that he should escape from loving you, seeing all that?"

The question had a significance that the speaker knew not. Who amongst mankind? Why, was there not one man for whom she would have been content to be the veriest slave that ever abnegated every personal delight for the love of a hard master? And he had pa.s.sed her by, indifferent, unseeing. She had wors.h.i.+pped him on her knees, as it seemed to her; and he had left her kneeling in the dust, while he went on to offer himself, heart and soul, at another shrine.

She could not forget these things. The memory and the bitterness of them came back with renewed poignancy at this moment, when the voice of a stranger told her she was beloved.

"My dear one, will you not answer me?" pleaded Gustave, in nowise alarmed by Diana's silence, which seemed to him only the natural expression of a maidenly emotion. "Tell me that you will give me measure for measure; that you will love me as my mother loved my father--with a love that trouble and poverty could never lessen; with a love that was strongest when fate was darkest--a star which the dreary night of sorrow could not obscure. I am ten years older than you by my baptismal register, Diane; but my heart is young. I never knew what love was until I knew you. And yet those who know me best will tell you that I was no unkind husband, and that my poor wife and I lived happily. I shall never know love again, except for you. The hour comes, I suppose, in every man's life; and the angel of his life comes in that appointed hour. Mine came when I saw you.

I have spoken to your father, and have his warm approval. He was all encouragement, and hinted that I might be a.s.sured of your love. Had he sufficient justification for that half-promise, Diane?"

"He had none," Miss Paget answered gravely, "none except his own wishes.

You have made me hear more than I wished to hear, M. Len.o.ble, for the treasure you offer me is one that I cannot accept. With all my heart I thank you for the love you tell me of. Even if it is, as I can but think it, a pa.s.sing fancy, I thank you, nevertheless. It is sweet to win the love of a good man. I pray you to believe that with all my heart and mind I honour your generous nature, your n.o.ble sympathy with the weak and friendless. If you can give me your friends.h.i.+p, you shall find how I can value a good man's regard, but I cannot accept your love."

"Why not?" asked Gustave, aghast.

"Because I cannot give you measure for measure, and I will not give you less."

"But in time, Diane, in time?"