Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall Part 20

He was in a revery and spoke more to himself than to me. "Yesterday she was my child--she was a child, and now--and now--she is--she is--Why the devil didn't you take her, Malcolm?" cried the old man, awakening. "But there, never mind; that is all past and gone, and the future Earl of Derby will be a great match for her."

"Do you know the future Earl of Derby?" I asked. "Have you ever seen him?"

"No," Sir George replied. "I hear he is rather wild and uncouth, but--"

"My dear cousin," said I, interrupting him, "he is a vulgar, drunken clown, whose a.s.sociates have always been stable boys, tavern maids, and those who are worse than either."

"What?" cried Sir George, hotly, the liquor having reached his brain. "You won't have Doll yourself, and you won't consent to another--damme, would you have the girl wither into spinsterhood? How, sir, dare you interfere?"

"I withdraw all I said, Sir George," I replied hastily. "I have not a word to say against the match. I thought--"

"Well, d.a.m.n you, sir, don't think."

"You said you wished to consult me about the affair, and I supposed--"

"Don't suppose either," replied Sir George, sullenly. "Supposing and thinking have hanged many a man. I didn't wish to consult you. I simply wanted to tell you of the projected marriage." Then after a moment of half-maudlin, sullen silence he continued, "Go to bed, Malcolm, go to bed, or we'll be quarrelling again."

I was glad enough to go to bed, for my cousin was growing drunk, and drink made a demon of this man, whose violence when sober was tempered by a heart full of tenderness and love.

Next morning Sir George was feeling irritable from the effects of the brandy he had drunk over night. At breakfast, in the presence of Lady Crawford, Madge, and myself, he abruptly informed Dorothy that he was about to give that young G.o.ddess to Lord James Stanley for his wife. He told her of the arrangement he had made the day before with the Earl of Derby. Lady Crawford looked toward her brother in surprise, and Madge pushed her chair a little way back from the table with a startled movement. Dorothy sprang to her feet, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng fire and her breast rising and falling like the storm-wrought pulsing of the sea. I coughed warningly and placed my finger on my lips, making the sign of silence to Dorothy. The girl made a wondrous and beautiful struggle against her wrath, and in a moment all signs of ill-temper disappeared, and her face took on an expression of sweet meekness which did not belong there of right. She quietly sat down again, and when I looked at her, I would have sworn that Griselda in the flesh was sitting opposite me. Sir George was right. "Ways such as the girl had of late developed were dangerous." h.e.l.l was in them to an extent little dreamed of by her father.

Breakfast was finished in silence. Dorothy did not come down to dinner at noon, but Sir George did not mark her absence. At supper her place was still vacant.

"Where is Doll?" cried Sir George, angrily. He had been drinking heavily during the afternoon. "Where is Doll?" he demanded.

"She is on the terrace," answered Madge. "She said she did not want supper."

"Tell your mistress to come to supper," said Sir George, speaking to one of the servants. "You will find her on the terrace."

The servant left the room, but soon returned, saying that Mistress Dorothy wanted no supper.

"Tell her to come to the table whether she wants supper or not. Tell her I will put a stop to her moping about the place like a surly vixen," growled Sir George.

"Don't send such a message by a servant," pleaded Lady Crawford.

"Then take it to her yourself, Dorothy," exclaimed her brother.

Dorothy returned with her aunt and meekly took her place at the table.

"I will have none of your moping and pouting," said Sir George, as Dorothy was taking her chair.

The girl made no reply, but she did not eat.

"Eat your supper," her father commanded. "I tell you I will have no--"

"You would not have me eat if I am not hungry, would you, father?" she asked softly.

"I'd have you hungry, you perverse wench."

"Then make me an appet.i.te," returned the girl. I never heard more ominous tones fall from human lips. They betokened a mood in which one could easily do murder in cold blood, and I was surprised that Sir George did not take warning and remain silent.

"I cannot make an appet.i.te for you, fool," he replied testily.

"Then you cannot make me eat," retorted Dorothy.

"Ah, you would answer me, would you, you brazen, insolent huzzy," cried her father, angrily.

Dorothy held up her hand warningly to Sir George, and uttered the one word, "Father." Her voice sounded like the clear, low ring of steel as I have heard it in the stillness of sunrise during a duel to the death.

Madge gently placed her hand in Dorothy's, but the caress met no response.

"Go to your room," answered Sir George.

Dorothy rose to her feet and spoke calmly: "I have not said that I would disobey you in regard to this marriage which you have sought for me; and your harshness, father, grows out of your effort to reconcile your conscience with the outrage you would put upon your own flesh and blood--your only child."

"Suffering G.o.d!" cried Sir George, frenzied with anger and drink. "Am I to endure such insolence from my own child? The lawyers will be here to-morrow. The contract will be signed, and, thank G.o.d, I shall soon be rid of you. I'll place you in the hands of one who will break your d.a.m.nable will and curb your vixenish temper." Then he turned to Lady Crawford. "Dorothy, if there is anything to do in the way of gowns and women's trumpery in preparation for the wedding, begin at once, for the ceremony shall come off within a fortnight."

This was beyond Dorothy's power to endure. Madge felt the storm coming and clutched her by the arm in an effort to stop her, but nothing could have done that.

"I marry Lord Stanley?" she asked in low, bell-like tones, full of contempt and disdain. "Marry that creature? Father, you don't know me."

"By G.o.d, I know myself," retorted Sir George, "and I say--"

"Now hear me, father," she interrupted in a manner that silenced even him. She bent forward, resting one fair hand upon the table, while she held out her other arm bared to the elbow. "Hear what I say and take it for the truth as if it had come from Holy Writ. I will open the veins in this arm and will strew my blood in a gapless circle around Haddon Hall so that you shall tread upon it whenever you go forth into the day or into the night before I will marry the drunken idiot with whom you would curse me. Ay, I will do more. I will kill you, if need be, should you try to force him on me. Now, father, we understand each other. At least you cannot fail to understand me. For the last time I warn you. Beware of me."

She gently pushed the chair back from the table, quietly adjusted the sleeve which she had drawn upward from her wrist, and slowly walked out of the room, softly humming the refrain of a roundelay. There was no trace of excitement about the girl. Her brain was acting with the ease and precision of a perfectly constructed machine. Sir George, by his violence and cruelty, had made a fiend of this strong, pa.s.sionate, tender heart.

That was all.

The supper, of course, was quickly finished, and the ladies left the room.

Sir George took to his bottle and remained with it till his servants put him to bed. I slipped away from him and smoked a pipe in front of the kitchen fire. Then I went early to my bed in Eagle Tower.

Dorothy went to her apartments. There she lay upon her bed, and for a time her heart was like flint. Soon she thought of her precious golden heart pierced with a silver arrow, and tears came to her eyes as she drew the priceless treasure from her breast and breathed upon it a prayer to the G.o.d of love for help. Her heart was soft again, soft only as hers could be, and peace came to her as she pressed John's golden heart to her lips and murmured over and over the words, "My love, my love, my love," and murmuring fell asleep.

I wonder how many of the countless women of this world found peace, comfort, and ecstasy in breathing those magic words yesterday? How many have found them to-day? How many will find them to-morrow? No one can tell; but this I know, they come to every woman at some time in her life, righteously or unrighteously, as surely as her heart pulses.

That evening Jennie Faxton bore a letter to John, informing him of the projected Stanley marriage. It asked him to meet the writer at Bowling Green Gate, and begged him to help her if he could.

The small and intermittent remnants of conscience, sense of duty, and caution which still remained in John's head--I will not say in John's heart, for that was full to overflowing with something else--were quickly banished by the unwelcome news in Dorothy's letter. His first impulse was to kill Stanley; but John Manners was not an a.s.sa.s.sin, and a duel would make public all he wished to conceal. He wished to conceal, among other things, his presence at Rutland. He had two reasons for so desiring. First in point of time was the urgent purpose with which he had come to Derbys.h.i.+re. That purpose was to further a plan for the rescue of Mary Stuart and to bring her incognito to Rutland Castle as a refuge until Elizabeth could be persuaded to receive her. Of this plan I knew nothing till after the disastrous attempt to carry it out, of which I shall hereafter tell you. The other reason why John wished his presence at Rutland unknown was that if he were supposed to be in London, no one would suspect him of knowing Dorothy Vernon.

You must remember there had been no overt love-making between John and Dorothy up to that time. The scene at the gate approached perilously near it, but the line between concealment and confession had not been crossed.

Mind you, I say there had been no love-making _between_ them. While Dorothy had gone as far in that direction as a maiden should dare go--and to tell the exact truth, a great deal farther--John had remained almost silent for reasons already given you. He also felt a fear of the girl, and failed to see in her conduct those signs of intense love which would have been plainly discernible had not his perceptions been blinded by the fury of his own infatuation. He had placed a curb on his pa.s.sion and did not really know its strength and power until he learned that another man was soon to possess the girl he loved. Then life held but one purpose for him.

Thus, you see that when Dorothy was moaning, "My love, my love," and was kissing the golden heart, she was taking a great deal for granted.

Perhaps, however, she better understood John's feeling for her than did he himself. A woman's sixth sense, intuition, is a great help to her in such cases. Perhaps the girl knew with intuitive confidence that her pa.s.sion was returned; and perhaps at first she found John's receptive mode of wooing sweeter far than an aggressive attack would have been. It may be also there was more of the serpent's cunning than of reticence in John's conduct. He knew well the ways of women, and perhaps he realized that if he would allow Dorothy to manage the entire affair she would do his wooing for him much better than he could do it for himself. If you are a man, try the plan upon the next woman whom you seek to win. If she happens to be one who has full confidence in her charms, you will be surprised at the result. Women lacking that confidence are restrained by fear and doubt.

But in no case have I much faith in the hammer-and-tongs process at the opening of a campaign. Later on, of course--but you doubtless are quite as well informed concerning this important subject as I. There is, however, so much blundering in that branch of science that I have a mind to endow a college at Oxford or at Paris in which shall be taught the gentle, universally needed art of making love. What a n.o.ble attendance such a college would draw. But I have wandered wofully from my story.

I must go back a short time in my narrative. A few days before my return to Haddon Hall the great iron key to the gate in the wall east of Bowling Green Hill was missed from the forester's closet where it had hung for a century or more. Bowling Green Hill, as you know, is eastward from Haddon Hall a distance of the fourth part of a mile, and the gate is east of the hill about the same distance or less. A wall is built upon the east line of the Haddon estate, and east of the wall lies a great trackless forest belonging to the house of Devons.h.i.+re. In olden times there had been a road from Bakewell to Rowsley along the east side of the wall; but before Sir George's seizin the road had been abandoned and the gate was not used. It stood in a secluded, unfrequented spot, and Dorothy thought herself very shrewd in choosing it for a trysting-place.

But as I told you, one day the key was missed. It was of no value or use, and at first nothing was thought of its loss; but from time to time the fact that it could not be found was spoken of as curious. All the servants had been questioned in vain, and the loss of the key to Bowling Green Gate soon took on the dignity of a mystery--a mystery soon to be solved, alas!

to Dorothy's undoing.