CHAPTER III.
Some few weeks later Mary received a letter, and hastened to impart its contents to her sons. “We are to be honored, especially honored, with a visit from Lady Augusta Vale and her daughter,” she said, with more animation than her sons had seen her display in years. “Augusta Champney was my dearest girl friend. In fact I had no other. We were inseparable. She was my maid of honor at my marriage, and was soon after married to Lord Arthur Vale, who died a few years ago leaving this daughter. I have always kept up a correspondence with Lady Vale, as you well know, having heard me speak of her many times. How gladly shall I welcome both mother and daughter, and if the dear child in any way resembles her mother as I remember her in her youthful beauty, then she is indeed most charming. Let me see, she must be about eighteen now.”
Mary cast a thoughtful eye at Roger, who sat idly drumming on the table, and looking out of the window with rather a bored expression.
Andrew saw his mother’s look and thought bitterly; “Her first thought is always of Roger. I know what’s in her mind. She has already selected the English girl to be my brother’s bride. Well he’s welcome to her. The Virginia girls are good enough for me, but it makes my blood boil to see mother place Roger first in everything, and if I thought I could frustrate her plans I would cut Roger out as soon as I saw any signs of his beginning to make love. I could do it, too.”
Roger suddenly stopped drumming on the table, and turned toward Mary. “How long will these grand people stay, mother mine?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, dear. Nothing definite is said in this letter. I shall not care if they never go away.”
“Whew! I think I’ll vacate,” exclaimed Roger, laughingly. “You won’t want a great lumbering fellow like me around after they get here. I’ve been wanting to go to New York for ever so long. Now is my chance.”
“Roger, you would never be so ungallant as to run away just at the very time when I need you most. Why I depend upon you to be our cavalier. What should I do?”
“Oh, Andy would pull you through all right. He can make himself twice as agreeable to the ladies as I can. He’ll have the English daisy dead in love with him in less than a month. Hey, old fellow?”
Roger rose and slapped Andrew heartily upon the back, whose brow clouded still darker as he watched his brother’s smiling face. “I’ll go off, also,” he said, gloomily. “Mother won’t want me around. She never does.”
“Don’t say that, my son,” replied Mary, warmly. “Why should I not want you? Are you not my own boy, and as dear to me as Roger? You will both stay here, I know, and help me to entertain my friends. Roger spoke a moment ago of their being grand people. Lady Augusta will be greatly changed from what I knew her, if she has even a spark of haughtiness. She is simple, and free from anything approaching the English pride of birth, which mar the otherwise lovely characters of the ladies of England. I am sure she is too wise and thoughtful to rear her daughter in any other but the true way, so we may expect to receive and welcome two ladies who are not ‘grand,’ as Roger is pleased to style them, but who will be as ourselves. Lady Vale could boast of her high lineage if she chose, for there is no bluer blood in all England, but she is not one to make a show, or parade her ancestors. I am sure you will never hear her speak of it boastingly. She has not much of a fortune left, I believe. Just enough to make her comfortable.”
Mary ended her little speech with a look of entreaty toward Roger, which said plainly: “You are my dear son. There is none other in the whole world like you. Stay and lay siege to this maiden’s heart, and give me a daughter.” Roger interpreted the look, and arose with a shrug of his shoulders, and left the room. His mother’s manner was marked, and therefore man-like, he mulishly determined that no one should arrange his love affairs for him, and that if his mother for a moment imagined such a thing, he would very shortly undeceive her. Accordingly, a few days before the visitors were expected, he appeared at his mother’s private room, attired for traveling. “I’m off for New York, mother mine,” he said, kissing her cheek. “Don’t know how long I shall be gone.”
Mary arose and threw her arms around his neck. “This is not treating me fairly, my son. I know you are going on account of my guests who are coming. Why do you object so strongly to meeting with them?”
“Home won’t seem the same after they get here,” replied Roger, brushing the soft hair from his mother’s brow. “Andy will take good care of Lady Vale and her daughter, and I’ll promise not to be gone longer than they stay. Write me when they are leaving, and you’ll see me here in a jiffy.”
Mary watched him depart with a tearful face. His long, swinging strides soon took him from her view, and she sank into a seat, burying her face in her hands. Until now she had not fully realized how much she had reckoned on Roger’s falling in love with the daughter of her old friend. He was heart free she well knew, never having cared especially for any one lady, and she had really set her heart upon a marriage between her favorite son and this girl who she imagined must be just the wife for him. Now her plans were all dashed to the ground, and by her own foolishness, too. If she had not mentioned their coming, but had taken Roger by surprise, all might have been well.
She dashed the tears away, and went out to find Andrew, whom she told of his brother’s departure. Andrew was not ill-pleased at the course Roger had taken. He had not much of an idea of laying siege to Miss Vale’s heart, still he was not unconscious of his brother’s superiority in many ways, and he thought to himself that so long as the ladies stayed, it was as well for Roger to be absent, and very thoughtful of him to take himself out of the way.
Soon after this the ladies came. Lady Vale, tall, statuesque, with snow white hair, and a beautiful face despite her years, and her daughter, so much like the mother, barring the beautiful bronze hair, and laughing grey eyes in which, as yet, there was no shadow of a sorrow. Both had the same sweet, serious mouth, charming when in repose, but most enchanting when parted with a smile, which was often the case with Victoria Vale. Her’s was a sunny nature, and Mary took her to her heart at once. In less than a week they had grown to be inseparable companions, and Lady Vale often laughingly remarked, that she was beginning to feel the pangs of jealousy for the first time in her life.
“If God had only blessed me with a daughter like you,” sighed Mary as she was strolling with her young companion. “It has ever been a sorrow to me that one of my sons was not a daughter.”
“Surely you do not love either of your sons less, just because he is a boy?” asked Victoria quickly.
“No-o,” said Mary, hesitatingly, “yet I would rather Andrew had been a girl.”
“She loves the absent one more dearly,” mused Victoria, looking at Mary’s speaking face. “Will you tell me about the son who is not here?” she asked, drawing Mary to a rustic seat and placing an arm about her.
“With pleasure, my love. You have seen his portrait, but that is cold, inanimate. It does not, cannot give you his winning charm of manner, his laughing voice, so full of hearty cheer. I miss him sadly, Victoria. He is a part of myself. We have never been separated so long before. The boys have often taken trips with their tutor while being educated, but never of very long duration, unless I went also. I long for his merry voice, always gay. I long to hear him say, ‘I am here, mother, mine.’”
“Why do you not send for him, Mrs. Willing? I am sure he will gladly return if he knows how you long for him.”
Mary gazed at the unconscious face of the beautiful girl. Dare she tell her what was in her mind? Dare she awaken thoughts which, until now, she was sure Victoria knew nothing of? Yes, she would. Her mother-love for the absent made her scent approaching danger, and she had noticed Andrew’s growing interest in her fair guest. She would speak. There could be no great harm in that. She took Victoria’s hand, and pressed it gently, while she looked directly into the sweet grey eyes.
“Roger is shy where ladies are, except, of course, his old mother. I fear he ran away to avoid you.”
A faint, pink flush covered Victoria’s face, and neck, and she quickly drew her hand from Mary’s.
“I am sorry,” she said, simply. “My mother and I will proceed on our travels to-morrow.”
“No, no, dear child,” cried Mary, in alarm. “You misunderstand me. Do not think for a moment that you are keeping Roger from his home. He—he—oh, how can I tell you, my sweet girl, for fear you may think my words designing ones, and still you should know me better. I would sooner die than cause you sorrow, or make you afraid of me.”
Victoria kissed Mary, and said gently: “Dear Mrs. Willing, I could never suspect you to be anything but good, true, and full of zealous care for my well-being. Next to dear mamma I love and adore you. Then what is this that agitates you so? Will you not tell me?”
“Yes, I will tell you, Victoria. Roger has gone away because—because he loves you.”
“Loves me!” cried the girl, rising and confusedly placing her hands to her head. “Ah, no, dear madam. You are mistaken. He has never seen me.”
“Ah, my dear, he does not need to see you. Love is not born with the sight. It is of the spirit. We have talked of you so much. He has dwelt upon your image, until he is already acquainted with you, and he has flown from you, abashed at his own boldness in daring to love one so far above him.”
Victoria buried her blushing face in her hands, and Mary gently drew the beautiful head to her bosom. “Do not be alarmed, dear one. He is not coming back to disturb your peace. He will never tell you of his love, so now forget that I have spoken, or that such a being as Roger Willing lives. I cannot part with you; your mother has not a warmer affection for you than I. Then why not remain here in America, making short trips to different points of interest, but always making this your abiding place.”
Artful Mary. If she had studied the rules of diplomacy all her life, she could not have taken a surer way of arousing Victoria’s interest in the absent Roger, than by talking as she had done.
Many times for weeks after, Victoria caught herself blushing at what Mary had told her. There is no young girl if told that a man whom she has never seen, and who has never seen her, is madly in love with her, but what will often allow her thoughts to wander to the absent one. “Poor fellow,” she thinks, “I am heartily sorry for him, but of course he did the best thing for himself by going away. I should never have fancied him, and it would have been dreadful to have had him in the same house with me.” Some such thoughts as these often ran through Victoria’s mind, and she would have been thoroughly surprised at herself if anybody had taken her to task as to how many times a day Roger’s name was on her tongue, or in her mind. She would have blushed to answer. Yes, indeed. Artful Mary.
At first Andrew met Victoria only at meal times, and in the drawing-room after dinner, and to his mother’s queries as to how he liked her, he answered that he “never did fancy red heads and owls’ eyes,” much to Mary’s secret satisfaction, but it was not long ere Andrew sought Victoria in her favorite haunts about the grounds, and if he saw her start out for a ramble or canter he was not slow in following her. Victoria did not dislike his attentions. His dark melancholy beauty was extremely fascinating, and Andrew had a manner if he chose to exercise it, that few women could resist. And in a very few weeks he threw all the fascinations of which he was master around the unconscious Victoria. Mesmerism was a subject just being agitated at that time, and Andrew was deeply interested in it. He believed Victoria to be of a yielding, pliant nature, and one easily influenced by magnetism. If they were sitting at the table he would fix his eyes upon her, and presently her eyelids would gently tremble, and then she would raise her eyes like a frightened fawn to his, and he would turn away with a satisfied smile. Again, he would be sitting upon the veranda as she passed out. He would follow her with his eyes, willing her to go so far and no further. She would stop, hesitate, turn back, and again ascend the steps, and seat herself beside him. All this pleased him, and he felt sure of being able to will her to do his bidding at any time when he saw fit. At first he was only interested in her, and had no thought of love or marriage, but as the weeks went by, he felt a longing for her presence when she was absent, and the mere sound of her voice in greeting, sent a thrill through him, which told him that if he did not already love, he was near to the brink.
As for Victoria, she was totally ignorant of any feeling, except friendship, for Andrew Willing, unless it might be a vague uneasiness when in his presence, for which she was unable to account. She knew that she breathed easier when away from him, and that very often she accompanied him on drives and boating, when she did not care to go, but felt some unseen power almost compelling her to do that which was against her will. She often raised her eyes to find his fixed upon her with a strange light in their depths, which made a chill go through her, and at times when she felt this unaccountable feeling, she would steal into the picture-gallery, and gaze long and earnestly at Roger’s quiet, peaceful face. It rested her, she knew not why, and she always went out feeling calmer, and more like her old self ere any disturbing element had come into her life.
Lady Vale did not see this little drama being enacted under her eyes, or she might have taken her daughter away, for she had conceived a dislike for Andrew, unaccountable even to herself; but Mary’s eyes were open, and she looked on with fear and trembling. Oh, if Roger would only return before the mischief had gone too far. She would write a pleading letter, taking care not to mention the name of Vale, and perhaps he might come home. So the letter was sent, and very shortly the answer came. Roger was enjoying himself hugely, and had no desire to return until the English visitors had departed.
“Well,” thought Mary, “if the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain. I will propose that we all take a trip, and it will be strange if I cannot bring them together before the journey is ended. I am satisfied what the result will be, once they see each other. My boy cannot help loving her, and she will likewise be drawn to him.”
Mary was not long in broaching the subject of travel to Lady Vale, who acquiesced immediately; and inside of a week, the house was left to the care of servants, and the four people had started for Canada.
Andrew was delighted with the arrangement, for he anticipated much pleasure journeying with the girl he loved, for he now acknowledged to himself that he was madly in love with the sweet fair English maiden, whose smile was heaven to him, and for whom if need be he would gladly die. He longed to breathe his passion but he dared not. Something in the serene, unconscious face restrained him, and he felt that he could afford to wait. He seemingly had things all his own way. He saw how his mesmeric power controlled her, and he felt no fear but that when the proper time came, she could no more resist him than the charmed bird can resist the pitiless eyes of the snake. He knew that she had not a spark of regard for him, but that would matter little when the time should come to act. His was the stronger will; he would compel her to yield to his love, then it would be an easy and most pleasant task to teach her to love him.