The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals. Ann S. Stephens

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СКАЧАТЬ loved the bright young creature, and had resolved within himself that no unreasonable opposition on the part of his former friend should prevent him marrying her, while there was a possibility of conciliating his bride, or working upon the love which he had always evinced for his child.

      Hepworth had learned, from conversation with both the ladies, that the Lord Hope of the present day was a very different person from the rash, headstrong, audacious young man whom he had almost threatened with disgrace fourteen years back.

      Then he was ready to cast wealth, rank, conscience, everything, aside for the gratification of any wild passion that beset him. Now he held the rank to which he was born sacred above all things; was careful, if not covetous, of wealth, because it added power to rank; and was known the whole country round as one of the proudest noblemen and most punctilious magistrates in the three kingdoms.

      This man's daughter he—Hepworth Closs—desired to make his wife. Nay, in spite of fate, meant to make his wife, unless she, in her own self, cast his love from her. Having settled upon this, he cast off all care, and gave himself up to the supreme happiness of loving and being beloved.

      So, as the two sat under the cedar tree, that bland autumn day, Clara thought, in her wilful little heart, that the man looked too confident and happy. She had no idea of settling down into a commonplace engagement, sanctioned or unsanctioned. What business had he to look so supremely contented? Did he not know that girls sometimes changed their minds?

      In short, Lady Clara was in a wilful mood, and could be provoking enough when the fit came on her. Just now she was embroidering diligently. The golden stamens of a superb cactus glowed out stitch by stitch, as her needle flew in and out of its great purplish and crimson leaves.

      "Why don't you look up, Clara? I haven't seen your eyes these ten minutes."

      "Indeed! Well, I'm too busy. Pray hand me a thread of that yellow silk."

      "Not if I can help it, ladybird. It's very tiresome sitting here, only to watch your sharp little needle as it drops color into that great flower. One never gets a sight of your full face."

      "Then you don't like the profile?" said Clara, demurely, and her needle flashed almost into Hepworth's eyes as he bent over her. "That is just what I expected. It isn't three days since you first pretended to care for me."

      "Pretended! Clara?"

      "That was the word," answered Clara, holding her work at arms' length, and examining it, with her head on one side, like a bird eyeing the cherry he longs to peck at. "Lovely, isn't it?"

      "I have been where you could gather armsful of them from the wayside," answered Hepworth. "That is well enough, of course, for silk and worsted; but you never can get that mixture of crimson, purple and glittering steel, that makes the flower so regal in the tropics; then the soft tassel of pale gold, streaming out from the heart, and thrown into relief by this exquisite combination of colors. Ah, some day I will show you what a cactus really is, Clara."

      "Perhaps," said the provoking girl, searching her work-basket for the silk she wanted. "Who knows?"

      A flash of color flew across Hepworth's forehead. The handsome fellow never had given himself much to the study of women, and even that pretty creature had the power to annoy him, mature man as he was. She saw that he was vexed, and rather liked it; for if the truth must be told, a more natural coquette never lived than Lady Clara.

      "Are you beginning to doubt, Clara?"

      "Doubt? Oh! not at all. I don't honestly believe that there ever was a more perfect flower than that. See how the colors melt into each other; then the point of that long, prickly leaf coming out behind. I tell you, Mr. Closs, it's perfect."

      She was looking down at her work, and he could not detect all the mischief that sparkled under her drooping lashes.

      "Clara, what does this mean?"

      The girl looked up at him so innocently.

      "Mean? Why, it means a cactus-flower."

      Hepworth Closs had never been a patient man, and the feelings which that wild girl had awakened in his heart were all too earnest for such trifling. He rose to leave her. Then she gave him a side glance, half comic, half repentant.

      "Are you going?"

      "Yes."

      "Dear me, I am so sorry, because I wanted to tell you something."

      The girl spoke and acted like a penitent child. Hepworth sat down again, but his face was clouded.

      "You can do anything with mamma Rachael, and I want you to ask a great favor for me."

      "Why not ask yourself? My sister denies you nothing."

      "But this is something peculiar, and she may think papa would not like it. There is to be a new opera brought out in London, and such a lovely girl is to make her first appearance in it, handsome as the morning, and with a voice like ten thousand nightingales. Now, I do so want to hear her on the first night."

      "Well, that is easy."

      "Yes, yes—if mamma Rachael would only think so. But papa is awful particular, and she may be afraid to take me. But with you for an escort, there can't really be any harm; so I want your help."

      "But how did you know about this? I have not seen it in the journals."

      "No, it hasn't got abroad yet. I will tell you all about it. When I was a very, very little girl, my poor mother died in America, where she was travelling among the Indians, I believe, with my father. Well, you see how hard it was on papa to be left with a poor little girl among the savages. I do not know just how it was; but when he married mamma Rachael, ever so long after, of course she got an American nurse in New York, who has been with me ever since. I call her my maid now, and won't have any other, French or not—for she's good as gold, and loves me dearly. You will believe that when I tell you our head gamekeeper wanted to marry her—she loved him, too, but wouldn't leave me. Margaret left a sister behind in New York that she was very fond of, and has been pining to see for years. Just before you came she received a letter from London, saying that her sister was there, travelling with some lady connected with the stage, and asking Margaret to come and visit her. Of course, Margaret went, and has been all this time on a long visit to her relative, who came to Europe with the great prima donna, Olympia. It is her adopted daughter that is coming out."

      "Olympia. Yes, I saw her in America last year—a wonderfully beautiful creature, in a certain way; but her style of acting is not exactly what I should choose for you, Lady Clara, though her voice is wonderful."

      "Oh, it isn't her I care about, but the young lady. Margaret says she is lovely as an angel, with a heavenly voice, but that she is frightened to death at coming on the stage, and begs and pleads with her mother not to insist on it; but Olympia is determined. My heart quite aches for this poor girl. She is about my age, Margaret says, and so beautiful—not a bit like me. I dare say it's true, for I would give the world to be an actress, and have the whole world go mad over my singing. By-the-way, Mr. Closs, do you know that I can sing? Mamma Rachael often says, if I were not a lady, I might go on the stage and beat half the prima donnas; besides, she says, I am a natural actress, and that seems to displease her."

      "I think you are a natural actress," said Closs, with a tinge of sarcasm, for this whole subject displeased him, he scarcely could have told СКАЧАТЬ