The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals

by Ann S. Stephens

Hepworth Closs arose from that fainting fit humbled and grateful. That moment his resolve was taken. He would not share the benefits which might come to him through his sister's marriage, nor in anything partake of a reward for the evil he had, in mercy, been saved from. The world was before him. He would work his way into prosperity, if possible; if not, bear his fate like a man who had deserved suffering, and could endure it.

One act of restitution was in his power. The property of the unfortunate person, whom he knew as Lady Hope, had fallen into his possession, for the house had been purchased in his name, and, in like manner, her deposits had been made. He had never intended to claim this money as his own, and invested it now, holding himself as the trustee. This done, he threw himself upon the world, quite alone.

During fifteen years he had asserted the honorable manhood that had sprung out of his erring youth. That fearful tragedy had sickened him with deception, and with all ambition which did not spring out of his own honest exertions. He went forth, with all his energies on the alert, and his intellect free from the suspicions that had for a time enthralled it. He had craved riches, and hoped to obtain them through Rachael's marriage. This had been a temptation. He had ambition still, but it took a far more noble direction. With wealth he would gather knowledge; with both, mental force and moral power.

He went. Men saw him in the gold mines of California, in Australia, and among the traders of India and Japan. Then he came back to New York, and was honorably known upon the exchange. Then came a yearning wish to see his sister, the only relative he had on earth; and we find him at the gate of Oakhurst Park, just as Lady Clara dashed through it, as bright a vision of joyous, happy girlhood as ever crossed the path of any man.

That moment I think that Hepworth Closs fell in love with the girl. If so, it was absolutely his first love. The boyish and most unprincipled passion he had felt for that murdered lady had no similitude with the feelings that possessed him now. It was a wicked, insane desire, springing out of his perverted youth—a feeling that he would have shuddered to have recognized as love, in these, his better days.

Yes, it is certain Closs loved the girl at first sight, but was unconscious of it, as the nest is when a dove settles down to its brooding.

As for the girl, she had seen but few men in her life calculated to disturb the repose of a creature so gifted and rich in imagination. At first Hepworth had seemed rather an old person to her, notwithstanding the gloss of his black hair, and the smooth whiteness of his forehead. With a trust in this, which gradually betrayed her, she accepted him frankly as a relative, and in less than three weeks, grew restless as a bird. She wondered what had made the world all at once so gloriously beautiful, and why it was so difficult for her to keep the tears out of her eyes when the soft purple evening came down, and divided the day which had been spent with him, from the night, when she could only hope to see him in shadowy dreams.

Rachael Closs saw all this, and it filled her with bitter rejoicing. How would her powerful old enemy receive the intelligence that a brother of hers had won the heart of the future Lady Carset? that he would be lord of the proud old castle, which must go with the title, and mingle the blood she had so often denounced as base with that which had turned against her, with such hot scorn, ever since she entered England as Lord Hope's wife?

The very thought of that haughty old peeress so humiliated was wonderfully pleasant to the wounded pride of Rachael Closs. But far beyond this was the yearning, almost passionate fondness she felt for her brother and the beautiful girl who had been to her at once a Nemesis and an infatuation.

This was what Lady Hope had hinted at when Hepworth first came. The great wish of her heart had grown to be the union of these two persons, next to one supreme object of love, the dearest beings to her on earth. It seemed to her that those long, weary intervals, which grew more and more frequent, when Lord Hope left her alone in the desolate splendor of that great house, would be more endurable if she were certain that these two persons would always be near her. She was not ambitious for her brother. That feeling had died out years ago; but her love sprang to him, like a freshly-kindled flame.