IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN JAN!
Lionel could not let the evening go over without speaking of the great secret. When he and Sir Henry were left together in the dining-room, he sought the opportunity. It was afforded by a remark of Sir Henry's.
"After our sojourn in London shall be over, I must look out for a residence, and settle down. Perhaps I shall purchase one. But I must first of all ascertain what locality would be agreeable to Lucy."
"Sir Henry," said Lionel in a low tone, "Lucy's future residence is fixed upon—if you will accord your permission."
Sir Henry Tempest, who was in the act of raising his wine-glass to his lips, set it down again and looked at Lionel.
"I want her at Verner's Pride."
It appeared that Sir Henry could not understand—did not take in the meaning of the words.
"What did you say?" he asked.
"I have loved her for years," answered Lionel, the, scarlet spot of emotion rising to his cheeks. "We—we have known each other's sentiments a long while. But I did not intend to speak more openly to Lucy until I had seen you. To-day, however, in the sudden excitement of hearing of her contemplated departure, I betrayed myself. Will you give her to me, Sir Henry?"
Sir Henry Tempest looked grave. "It cannot have been so very long an attachment," he observed. "The time since your wife's death can only be counted by months."
"True. But the time since I loved Lucy can be counted by years. I loved her before I married," he added in a low tone.
"Why, then, have married another?" demanded Sir Henry, after a pause.
"You may well ask it, Sir Henry," he replied, the upright line in his brow showing out just then all too deep and plain. "I engaged myself to my first wife in an unguarded moment; as soon as the word was spoken I became aware that she was less dear to me than Lucy. I might have retracted; but the retractation would have left a stain on my honour that could never be effaced. I am, not the first man who has paid by years of penitence for a word spoken in the heat of passion."
True enough! Sir Henry simply nodded his head in answer.
"Yes, I loved Lucy; I married another, loving her; I never ceased loving her all throughout my married life. And I had to force down my feelings; to suppress and hide them in the best manner that I could."
"And Lucy?" involuntarily uttered Sir Henry.
"Lucy—may I dare to say it to you?—loved me," he answered, his breath coming fast. "I believe, from my very heart, that she loved me in that early time, deeply perhaps as I loved her. I have never exchanged a word with her upon the point; but I cannot conceal from myself that it was the unhappy fact."
"Did you know it at the time?"
"No!" he answered, raising his hand to his brow, on which the drops were gathering, "I did not suspect it until it was too late; until I was married. She was so child-like."
Sir Henry Tempest sat in silence, probably revolving the information.
"If you had known it—what then?"
"Do not ask me," replied Lionel, his bewailing tone strangely full of pain. "I cannot tell what I should have done. It would have been Lucy—love—versus honour. And a Verner never sacrificed honour yet. And yet—it seems to me that I sacrificed honour in the course I took. Let the question drop, Sir Henry. It is a time I cannot bear to recur to."
Neither spoke for some minutes. Lionel's face was shaded by his hand. Presently he looked up.
"Do not part us, Sir Henry!" he implored, his voice quite hoarse with its emotion, its earnestness. "We could neither of us bear it. I have waited for her long."
"I will deal candidly with you," said Sir Henry. "In the old days it was a favourite project of mine and your father's that our families should become connected by the union of our children—you and Lucy. We only spoke of it to each other; saying nothing to our wives: they might have set to work, women fashion, and urged it on by plotting and planning: we were content to let events take their course, and to welcome the fruition, should it come. Nearly the last words Sir Lionel said to me, when he was dying of his wound, were, that he should not live to see the marriage; but lie hoped I might. Years afterwards, when Lucy was placed with Lady Verner—I knew, no other friend in Europe to whom I would entrust her—her letters to me were filled with Lionel Verner. 'Lionel was so kind to her!'—'Everybody liked Lionel!' In one shape or other you were sure to be the theme. I heard how you lost the estate; of your coming to stay at Lady Verner's; of a long illness you had there; of your regaining the estate through the death of the Massingbirds; and—next—of your marriage to Frederick Massingbird's widow. From that time Lucy said less: in fact, her letters were nearly silent as to you: and, for myself, I never gave another thought to the subject. Your present communication has taken me entirely by surprise."
"But you will give her to me?"
"I had rather—forgive me if I speak candidly—that she married one who had not called another woman wife."
"I heartily wish I never had called another woman wife," was the response of Lionel. "But I cannot alter the past. I shall not make Lucy the less happy; and, for moving her—I tell you that my love for her, throughout, has been so great, as to have put it almost beyond the power of suppression."
A servant entered, and said my lady was waiting tea. Lionel waved his hand towards the man with an impatient movement, and they were left at peace again.
"You tell me that her heart is engaged in this, as well as yours?" resumed Sir Henry.
A half-smile flitted for a moment over Lionel's face; he was recalling Lucy's whispered words to him that very afternoon.
"Yes," he answered, "her heart is bound up in me: I may almost say her life. If ever love served out its apprenticeship, Sir Henry, ours has. It is stronger than time and change."
"Well, I suppose you must have her," conceded Sir Henry. "But for your own marriage, I should have looked on this as a natural result. What about the revenues of Verner's Pride?"
"I am in debt," freely acknowledged Lionel. "In my wife's time we spent too much, and outran our means. Part of my income for three or four years must be set apart to pay it off."
He might have said, "In my wife's time she spent too much;" said it with truth. But, as he spared her feelings, living, so he spared her memory, dead.
"Whoever takes Lucy, takes thirty thousand pounds on her wedding-day," quietly remarked Sir Henry Tempest.
The words quite startled Lionel. "Thirty thousand pounds!" he repeated mechanically.
"Thirty thousand pounds. Did you think I should waste all my best years in India, Lionel, and save up nothing for my only child?"
"I never thought about it," was Lionel's answer. "Or if I ever did think, I suppose I judged by my father. He saved no money."
"He had not the opportunity that I have had; and he died early. The appointment I held, out there, has been a lucrative one. That will be the amount of Lucy's present fortune."
"I am glad I did not know it!" heartily affirmed Lionel.
"It might have made the winning her more difficult, I suppose you think?"
"Not the winning her," was Lionel's answer, the self-conscious smile again on his lips. "The winning your consent, Sir Henry."
"It has not been so hard a task, either," quaintly remarked Sir Henry, as he rose. "I am giving her to you, understand, for your father's sake; in the trust that you are the same honourably good man, standing well before the world and Heaven, that he was. Unless your looks belie you, you are not degenerate."
Lionel stood before him, almost too agitated to speak. Sir Henry stopped him, laying his hand upon his shoulder.
"No thanks, Lionel. Gratitude? You can pay all that to Lucy after she shall be your wife."
They went together into the drawing-room, arm-in-arm. Sir Henry advanced straight to his daughter.
"What am I to say to you, Lucy? He has been talking secrets."
She looked up, like a startled fawn. But a glimpse at Lionel's face reassured her, bringing the roses into her cheeks. Lady Verner, wondering, gazed at them in amazement, and Lucy hid her hot cheeks on her father's breast.
"Am I to scold you? Falling in love without my permission!"
The tone, the loving arm wound round her, brought to her confidence. She could almost afford to be saucy.
"Don't be angry, papa!" were her whispered words. "It might have been worse."
"Worse!" returned Sir Henry, trying to get a look at her face. "You independent child! How could it have been worse?"
"It might have been Jan, you know, papa."
And Sir Henry Tempest burst into an irrepressible laugh as he sat down.