CHAPTER XXXIX.
Sir Harry Henderson was very curious, and he longed to anticipate the explanation which he had promised for the evening; but he was disappointed, for the principal actors in the scene which had just passed had given up, they thought, enough time to facts, and were now disposed to afford a larger share to emotions.
For half-an-hour the whole party remained assembled in the drawing-room; but then one began to drop off after another, and the conversation, which had at first been of an eager yet gossiping kind, discussing all that had taken place, and the demeanour of several of those who had appeared upon the stage, languished for want of fresh materials.
Mr. Hargrave, though the oldest man of the party, was the one for whom a sensitive heart and intelligent mind had preserved, least impaired, that delicate perception--or rather, I should have said, intuition--of the feelings of others, which is so beautiful to see at a period of life when passions have become memories, and the emotions of life are stilled by the awful presence of the yawning grave.
He watched the face of Maria Monkton for a moment, as she sat with her cheek leaning on her hand, her eyes fixed upon the floor, and her mind evidently brooding over the scenes which had that morning taken place, her heart thrilling with sensations of joy and thankfulness. He saw the eyes of the young earl turn to her with a longing glance, as if he would fain have cast his arms round her and pressed her to his heart; and the old man said to himself--
"These young people would be better with fewer eyes upon them. Come, Sir Harry," he continued aloud; "you and the colonel must take a walk through the park with me, and see the improvements I was proposing to Lady Anne the other day. I do not know whether they may find favour with her brother; but I shall plead for them strongly, for there is no art so full of vanity as landscape gardening."
"Will you come and judge of them, my lord?" asked Colonel Mandrake; but Henry replied--
"I fear, my dear sir, my thoughts would be so busy with other things that I should not do them justice. In a short time, I think, I shall beg the advice of all three gentlemen upon many points, both of taste and business; but to-day I will not venture to do so."
Mr. Hargrave then, with his two companions, walked out into the park. Mr. Winkworth had quitted the drawing-room some time before. Lady Anne had disappeared: Charles Marston was not to be seen; and Lady Fleetwood, Maria, Mrs. Brice, and Henry, were the only persons remaining. Mrs. Brice slipped quietly away; and dear aunt Fleetwood sat for a minute or two, debating with herself what she should do. She knew that it would be very pleasant for Maria to be left alone for a time with her lover. She had not so much forgotten the lessons of youth as to doubt that; but she thought it would distress her niece if she brought the matter about too ostentatiously, and she puzzled herself for an excuse, finding none, till at length Henry laid his hand upon Maria's arm, saying--
"Dear Maria, I want to speak with you for a few moments."
Then Lady Fleetwood started up to go, without any excuse at all; first dropped her gloves, and then her handkerchief, and then the everlasting purse. Henry picked them up, with a smile, saying--
"Dear Lady Fleetwood, what I said need not banish you. We are going to the little breakfast-room."
"No, no; stay here," said Lady Fleetwood, hurrying away. But there was a fatality about her "best intentions;" and directing her steps to the library, she opened the door hurriedly, trying with one hand to keep fast hold of her gloves and handkerchief, and of the purse with the other, when, on the door flying back farther than she intended, she saw before her Charles Marston and Lady Anne Mellent, with his arm round her waist. Lady Fleetwood would fain have retreated instantly; but she had to shut the door, and in so doing she dropped the purse again, and as she stooped to pick it up, the door, coming to vehemently, hit her on the head, and nearly knocked her down. But while Charles was hurrying to her assistance, and Lady Anne stood half laughing, half crying, by the table, she contrived to pick up the purse and beat a retreat. Her next harbour of refuge was the little breakfast-room; but there again she found Henry and Maria, who had gone thither to avoid interruption; and at last she bethought her that it might be as well to try her own bed-room, which she had the happiness of finding vacant.
"Dear Lady Fleetwood!" said Anne Mellent, when Charles returned; "fate seems to lay traps for her. But now, Charles, remember our present compact, and keep it better than you did the last. Do you suppose that I did not see, while, under all your affectation of cool confidence and implicit trust, that your angry spirit was accusing me of every kind of coquetry, and grilling itself, like a London woman's head in a lace bonnet going out in August, in an open carriage, to a picnic at Shooter's Hill?" Charles Marston laughed.
"Well," he said, "it is true. I was uneasy, dearest Anne, but not with any doubt or mistrust, as you suppose, for of your love and truth I had no doubt; but it was impossible for me to divine such a cause as has now appeared for your conduct, and you yourself must confess that nothing else but such a cause could justify it."
"You might have been quite sure," replied Lady Anne, "that I had a sufficient cause. But I will own the trial was hard," she added, in a lighter tone; for her first words had been spoken gravely; "and therefore I forgive you. I took a sly, quiet look at your face, when the secret came out; and, I must say, I never saw a more remarkable look of foolish astonishment. However, perhaps I may surprise you still more before I have done to-day; and then I suppose it will be all over, and I shall sink down into a tame, quiet, every-day sort of wife, who, if ever she ventures upon one of her old vagaries, will be scolded heartily and will endure it with due submission."
"No, no, dear girl," he answered; "you must be ever, as far as possible, what you are now. I love you as you are, and could not love you better for any change. Depend upon it, dear Anne, it is the change after marriage from what people were, or seemed, before marriage, which is the source of nine-tenths of the unhappiness one sometimes hears of in married life."
"Then take care what you are about, Charles," said Lady Anne, with a look of surprise; "for you are actually changing already. You are talking like a reasonable man. Now you know quite well, if I had ever thought you pretended to such a character, I never would have consented to marry you. But I forgot one thing. You may very likely not wish to marry me now. Do you remember, sir, coming to me one morning, with a grave and serious face, and setting me free from all promises, because an alteration had taken place in your circumstances? Now a very great alteration has taken place in mine--I have lost more than thirty thousand a-year--and therefore I now set you free."
Charles Marston laughed.
"I won't be free," he answered: "I refuse emancipation: and, to tell you the truth, my love, I am very glad it is so. The marriage is not now so unequal as it was. The good world would only have said----"
"Never mind what the world would say, Charles," answered Lady Anne. "The world is a great fool, and says every day the most ridiculous things, which nobody should care about or think of. And now, to prove how little I care, I am going to sit with Mr. Winkworth, in his bed-room, for half-an-hour."
"Well, go," said Charles. "I do not wish to stop you; but come down again soon, for I am determined to have a long ramble in the park with you--all alone."
"We shall see," answered Lady Anne, and she left him.
While the conversation which I have just detailed was taking place in one part of the house, one of a very different tone went on in the little breakfast-room, between Maria and her lover. She had gone thither with her arm through his, but somehow, when seated on the sofa there, his arm had fallen round her and his hand clasped hers. We have heard of eloquent silence, and I am not very fond of the expression, nor indeed of any paradoxical figures. Still Maria and Henry were silent, quite silent, for a minute or two after they entered the room; and their silence might well indicate the presence of many powerful emotions in their hearts--too large, too powerful for words. The first which Henry uttered were, "Do you forgive me, Maria?"
"Forgive you for what, Henry?" she asked.
"For keeping you in suspense," he answered; "for withholding from you that full, entire, unclouded confidence which shall never be withheld again. The only cause was, dear Maria, that my dear, kind, generous sister, who rejoices as much to see herself deprived of a large property as others would rejoice to receive one, bound me to silence till everything was prepared, both to establish my claims and to meet any charges against me. She was fearful that the least hint escaping might precipitate matters, and place us for a time at least in a difficult, if not a dangerous situation. Perhaps, indeed, there might be a little of the spirit of adventure and romance in her desire for keeping everything secret to the last; but still you will own she has managed admirably for me."
"Admirably indeed," exclaimed Maria, with tears in her eyes; "and when at last she said, 'What! marry my brother!' I felt inclined to run forward and cast myself at her feet. But, oh, Henry! what can I say of my uncle's conduct? What must you feel towards him? And are you quite quite sure, that you will never let any of those feelings fall back upon me?"
"Can you believe it for a moment, my beloved?" he replied. "What! upon you, the dearest, the best, the earliest friend I have--you, whose noble heart judged mine rightly from the beginning--you, who never abandoned me, who never failed me, who received me on my return with the same affection, the same confidence, which had existed between us in childhood--you, who upon my simple assurance, unsupported, unconfirmed, believed the tale I told, and in the moment of danger and difficulty conferred upon me that blessed hope which gave me strength and courage to encounter every peril and triumph over every obstacle! Oh, no, Maria! no: I shall ever look upon you and your love as the crowning mercies of all those with which heaven has compensated for a short period of anguish and disgrace. So far from my feelings towards Mr. Scriven falling back upon you, I trust, and indeed am sure, that my feelings towards you will sensibly affect my sensations towards him. Angry and indignant I must feel; but I will try, as soon as possible, to banish all such emotions, and will never forget that he is the uncle of one who loved and supported me in adversity and sorrow."
Another silent pause succeeded, for Maria did not reply; but she thanked him in her heart, and then, looking up in his face, she said, "There is much, I suppose, still to be done to establish your rights."
"Not much," replied Henry. "The whole case, I think, is very clear. All the steps taken by Mr. Scriven to prove that I am Henry Hayley tend to establish the fact that I am the son of the late Earl of Milford; and my dear sister Anne had that in view, in suffering him to go on so long without bringing forward the proofs of my innocence which she possessed. Indeed, she managed the whole with a degree of skill and judgment quite extraordinary in one so young, and apparently so wild. The proofs of my own legitimacy I have myself obtained in an extraordinary manner; and two or three papers, which, luckily, were not in the pocket-book of which I was robbed, fill up every break in the chain of evidence. You will hear the whole fully detailed to-night, and will see that, though aristocratic by the father's side, I am plebeian by the mother's; but I do not think you will love or esteem me the less for that. Nor, to say the truth, do I myself regret it; for I believe that it is by the frequent mingling of plebeian with patrician blood that the aristocracy of this country is so different from, and so much superior to that of any other. My grandfather is still living--a fine specimen of the English yeoman; and I know that my Maria will join with me in making him forget his sorrows. Some prejudices, indeed, I know he has, especially against men of a higher rank and station than his own; but those I am sure will be removed when he finds that his daughter's son can be fully as proud of the upright honesty of one ancestor as of the rank and station of another."
"But what will you do with regard to the property you have inherited in Spain, and the family there which claims you as one of its members?" demanded Maria.
"That will be easily managed," answered Henry; "though it certainly is a curious situation in which to be--as Mrs. Malaprop calls it, 'three gentlemen in one'--Henry Hayley, Frank Middleton, and Lord Milford. However, Henry Hayley we shall soon dispose of; and Frank Middleton's conduct will be very clear--to renounce the name, to restore the whole property, to repay every dollar he has received from it. The family will be very well satisfied with the restitution, for it was left to me by will, not taken as succession; and I have a letter from Don Balthazar, at the time he made his will, stating that he knew me to be no relation, and that he was acquainted with my name and history, yet left me the property with that knowledge. The family, therefore, could establish no legal claim to that which I intended to restore. The letter will only be useful as justifying me in all eyes for having retained the property so long; but I would fain, in this as in other things, come out clear of any imputation."
"I am sure you will," replied Maria; "I always was sure of it, Henry; and I must do my aunt Fleetwood the justice to say, that she has never ceased to maintain your innocence."
"Dear aunt Fleetwood!" said Henry with a smile. "I know, Maria, she loved me when a boy, and would not easily believe any evil of me. We must not forget her in our own happiness, Maria, although ours will, I am sure, greatly contribute to hers. She must be with us as much as possible; and I trust and believe that her good intentions will no longer have any power of working in a contrary sense."
The conversation proceeded in the same course for some time, and then the whole party reassembled at luncheon. The afternoon was spent in rambles in the neighbourhood, and in those various ways of killing time which we usually see practised in a country-house. To Lady Fleetwood Henry was tender kindness itself; and he soon taught the excellent lady to imagine that her "good intentions," though they had taken a droll course, had operated for his benefit, and to congratulate herself upon the result. Joshua Brown was committed to the care of Carlini; and all the servants of the house, though they did not comprehend the matter clearly, addressed Lady Anne's acknowledged brother with infinite reverence, and at every other word called him "my lord."