Sir Noel's Heir Part 10

"It was so nice, papa!" she cried rapturously, riding home in the misty moonlight. "I never enjoyed myself so well. I like Rupert so much--better than May, you know; May's so rude and laughs so loud. I've asked them to come and see me, papa; and May said she would make her mamma let them come next week. And then I'm going back--I shall always like to go there."

Col. Jocyln smiled as he listened to his little daughter's prattle.

Perhaps he agreed with her; perhaps he, too, liked to go there. The dinner-party, at which he and the rector of St. Gosport, and the rector's wife were the only guests, had been quite as pleasant as the birthday fete. Very graceful, very fair and stately, had looked the lady of the manor, presiding at her own dinner-table. How well she would look at the head of his.

The Indian officer, after that, became a very frequent guest at Thetford Towers--the children were such a good excuse. Aileen was lonely at home, and Rupert and May were always glad to have her. So papa drove her over nearly every day, or else came to fetch the other two to Jocyln Hall.

Lady Thetford was ever most gracious, and the colonel's hopes ran high.

Summer waned. It was October, and Lady Thetford began talking of leaving St. Gosport for a season; her health was not good, and change of air was recommended.

"I can leave my children in charge of Mrs. Weymore," she said. "I have every confidence in her; and she has been with me so long. I think I shall depart next week; Dr. Gale says I have delayed too long."

Col. Jocyln looked up uneasily. They were sitting alone together, looking at the red October sunset blazing itself out behind the Devon hills.

"We shall miss you very much," he said, softly. "I shall miss you."

Something in his tone struck Lady Thetford. She turned her dark eyes upon him in surprise and sudden alarm. The look had to be answered; rather embarra.s.sed, and not at all so confident as he thought he would have been, Col. Jocyln asked Lady Thetford to be his wife.

There was a blank pause. Then,

"I am very sorry, Col. Jocyln, I never thought of this."

He looked at her, pale--alarmed.

"Does that mean no, Lady Thetford?"

"It means no, Col. Jocyln. I have never thought of you save as a friend; as a friend I still wish to retain you. I will never marry. What I am to-day I will go to my grave. My boy has my whole heart--there is no room in it for anyone else. Let us be friends, Col. Jocyln," holding out her white jeweled hand, "more, no mortal man can ever be to me."

CHAPTER VIII.

LADY THETFORD'S BALL.

Years came and years went, and thirteen pa.s.sed away. In all these years with their countless changes, Thetford Towers had been a deserted house.

Comparatively speaking, of course; Mrs. Weymore, the governess, Mrs.

Hilliard, the housekeeper, Mr. Jarvis, the butler, and their minor satellites, served there still, but its mistress and her youthful son had been absent. Only little May had remained under Mrs. Weymore's charge until within the last two years, and then she, too, had gone to Paris to a finis.h.i.+ng school.

Lady Thetford came herself to the Towers to fetch her--the only time in these thirteen years. She had spent them pleasantly enough, rambling about the Continent, and in her villa on the Arno, for her health was frail, and growing daily frailer, and demanded a sunny Southern clime.

The little baronet had gone to Eton, thence to Oxford, pa.s.sing his vacation abroad with his mamma--and St. Gosport had seen nothing of them. Lady Thetford had thought it best, for many reasons, to leave little May quietly in England during her wanderings. She missed the child, but she had every confidence in Mrs. Weymore. The old aversion had entirely worn away, but time had taught her she could trust her implicitly; and though May might miss "mamma" and Rupert, it was not in that flighty fairy's nature to take their absence very deeply to heart.

Jocyln Hall was vacated, too. After that refusal of Lady Thetford, Col.

Jocyln had left England, placed his daughter in a school abroad, and made a tour of the East.

Lady Thetford he had not met until within the last year, when Lady Thetford and her son, spending the winter in Rome, had encountered Col.

and Miss Jocyln, and they had scarcely parted company since. The Thetfords were to return early in the spring to take up their abode once more in the old home, and Col. Jocyln announced his intention of following their example.

Lady Thetford wrote to Mrs. Weymore, her vice-roy, and to her steward, issuing her orders for the expected return. Thetford Towers was to be completely rejuvenated--new furnished, painted and decorated. Landscape gardeners were set at work in the grounds; all things were to be ready the following June.

Summer came and brought the absentees--Lady Thetford and her son, Col.

Jocyln and his daughter; and there were bonfires and illuminations, and feasting of tenantry, and ringing of bells, and general jubilation, that the heir of Thetford Towers had come to reign at last.

The week following the arrival, Lady Thetford issued invitations over half the country for a grand ball. Thetford Towers, after over twenty years of gloom and solitude, was coming out again in the old gayety and brilliance that had been its normal state before the present heir was born.

The night of the ball came, and with nearly every one who had been honored with an invitation, all curious to see the future lord of one of the n.o.blest domains in broad Devons.h.i.+re.

Sir Rupert Thetford stood by his mother's side, and met her old friends for the first time since his boyhood--a slender young man, pale and dark, and handsome of face with dreamy slumbrous eyes of darkness, and quiet manners, not at all like his father's fair-haired, bright-eyed, stalwart Saxon race; the Thetford blood had run out, he was his own mother's son.

Lady Thetford grown pallid and wan, and wasted in all these years, and bearing within the seeds of an incurable disease, looked yet fair and gracious, and stately in her trailing robes and jewels, to-night, receiving her guests like a queen. It was the triumph of her life, the desire of her heart, this seeing her son, her idol, reigning in the home of his fathers, ruler of the broad domain that had owned the Thetfords lord for more years back than she could count.

"If I could but see her his wife," Lady Thetford thought, "I think I should have nothing left on earth to desire."

She glanced across the wide room, along a vista of lights, and flitting forms, and rich dresses, and sparkling jewels, to where a young lady stood, the center of an animated group--a tall and eminently handsome girl, with a proud patrician face, and the courtly grace of a young empress--Aileen Jocyln, heiress of fabulous wealth, possessor of fabulous beauty, and descendant of a race as n.o.ble and as ancient as his own.

"With her for his wife, come what might in the future, my Rupert would be safe," the mother thought; "and who knows what a day may bring forth?

Ah! if I dared only speak, but I dare not; it would ruin all. I know my son."

Yes, Lady Thetford knew her son, understood his character thoroughly, and was a great deal too wary a conspirator to let him see her cards.

Fate, not she, had thrown the heiress and the baronet constantly together of late, and Aileen's own beauty and grace was surely sufficient for the rest. It was the one desire of Lady Thetford's heart; but she never said to her son, who loved her dearly, and would have done a great deal to add to her happiness. She left it to fate, and leaving it, was doing the wisest thing she could possibly do.

It seemed as if her hopes were likely to be realized. Sir Rupert had an artist's and a Sybarite's love for all things beautiful, and could appreciate the grand statuesque style of Miss Jocyln's beauty, even as his mother could not appreciate it. She was like the Pallas Athine, she was his ideal woman, fair and proud, uplifted and serene, smiling on all, from the heights of high-and-mightydom, but s.h.i.+ning upon them, a brilliant far-off star, keeping her warmth and sweetness all for him. He was an indolent, dreamy Sybarite, this pale young baronet, who liked his rose-leaves unruffled under him, full of artistic tastes and inspirations, and a great deal too lazy ever to carry them into effect.

He was an artist, and he had a studio where he began fifty gigantic deeds at once in the way of pictures, and seldom finished one. Nature had intended him for an artist, not country squire; he cared little for riding, or hunting, or fis.h.i.+ng, or farming, or any of the things wherein country squires delight; he liked better to lie on the warm gra.s.s, with the summer wind stirring in the trees over his head, and smoke his Turkish pipe, and dream the lazy hours away. If he had been born a poor man he might have been a great painter; as it was, he was only an idle, listless, elegant, languid dreamer, and so likely to remain until the end of the chapter.

Lady Thetford's ball was a very brilliant affair, and a famous success.

Until far into the gray and dismal dawn, "flute, violin, ba.s.soon," woke sweet echoes in the once ghostly rooms, so long where silence had reigned. Half the county had been invited, and half the county were there; and hosts of pretty, rosy girls, in arcophane and roses, and sparkling jewelry, baited their dainty traps, and "wove becks and nods, and wreathed smiles," for the special delectation of the handsome courtly heir of Thetford Towers.

But the heir of Thetford Towers, with gracious greetings for all, yet walked through the rose strewn pitfalls all secure, whilst the starry face of Aileen Jocyln shone on him in its pale, high-bred beauty. He had not danced much; he had an antipathy to dancing as he had to exertion of any kind, and presently he stood leaning against a slender white column, watching her in a state of lazy admiration. He could see quite as clearly as his mother how eminently proper a marriage with the heiress of Col. Jocyln would be; he knew by instinct, too, how much she desired it; and it was easy enough, looking at her in her girlish pride and beauty, to fancy himself very much in love, and though anything but a c.o.xcomb, Sir Rupert Thetford was perfectly aware of his own handsome face and dreamy artist's eyes, and his fifteen thousand a year, and lengthy pedigree, and had a hazy idea that the handsome Aileen would not say no when he spoke.

"And I'll speak to-night, by Jove!" thought the young baronet, as near being enthusiastic as was his nature, as he watched her, the brilliant center of a brilliant group. "How exquisite she is in her statuesque grace, my peerless Aileen, the ideal of my dreams. I'll ask her to be my wife to-night, or that inconceivable idiot, Lord Gilbert Penryhn, will do it to-morrow."

He sauntered over to the group, not at all insensible to the quick, bright smile and flitting flush with which Miss Jocyln welcomed him.

"I believe this waltz is mine, Miss Jocyln. Very sorry to break upon your _tete-a-tete_, Penryhn, but necessity knows no law."

A moment and they were floating down the whirling tide of the dance, with the wild, melancholy waltz music swelling and sounding, and Miss Jocyln's perfumed hair breathing fragrance around him, and the starry face and dark, dewy eyes downcast a little, in a happy tremor. The cold, still look of fixed pride seemed to melt out of her face, and an exquisite rosy light came and went in its place, and made her too lovely to tell; and Sir Rupert saw and understood it all, with a little complacent thrill of satisfaction.

They floated out of the ball-room into a conservatory of exquisite blossom, where tropic plants of gorgeous hues, and plas.h.i.+ng fountains, under the white light of alabaster lamps, made a sort of garden of Eden.

There were orange and myrtle trees oppressing the warm air with their sweetness, and through the open French windows came the soft, misty moonlight and the saline wind. There they stopped, looking out of the pale glory of the night, and there Sir Rupert, about to ask the supreme question of his life, and with his heart beginning to plunge against his side, opened conversation with the usual brilliancy in such cases.

"You look fatigued, Miss Jocyln. These grand b.a.l.l.s are great bores, after all."

Miss Jocyln laughed frankly. She was of a nature far more impa.s.sioned than his, and she loved him; and she felt thrilling through every nerve in her body the prescience of what he was going to say; for all that, being a woman, she had the best of it now.

"I am not at all fatigued," she said; "and I like it. I don't think b.a.l.l.s are bores--like this, I mean; but then, to be sure, my experience is very limited. How lovely the night is! Look at the moonlight, yonder, on the sea--a sheet of silvery glory. Does it not recall Sorrento and the exquisite Sorrentine landscape--that moonlight on the sea? Are you not inspired, sir artist?"

She lifted a flitting, radiant glance, a luminous smile, and the star-like face, drooped again--and the white hands took to reckless breaking off sweet sprays of myrtle.

"My inspiration is nearer," looking down at the drooping face.