They came at last into the drawing-room. The Squire took his accustomed place by the fire. In due time came his “nightcap.” Miss Alice played his airs over and over on the piano. The Captain yawned stealthily into his hand at intervals, and at last stole away.
“Well, Ally, here we are at last, girl. That moping rascal’s gone to his bed; I thought he’d never ’a gone. And now come here, ye little fool, I want to talk to ye. Come, I say, what the devil be ye afeared on? I’d like to see the fellow ’d be uncivil to you. My wife, as soon as the lawyers can write out the parchments, the best settlements has ever bin made on a Fairfield’s wife since my great uncle’s time. Why, ye look as frightened, ye pretty little fool, as if I was a-going to rob ye, instead of making ye lady o’ Wyvern, and giving ye every blessed thing I have on earth. That’s right!”
He had taken her timid little hand in his bony and tremulous grasp.
“I’ll have ye grander than any that ever has been”—he was looking in her face with an exulting glare of admiration—“and I’ll give ye the diamonds for your own, mind, and I’ll have your picture took by a painter. There was never a lady o’ Wyvern fit to hold a candle to ye, and I’m a better man than half the young fellows that’s going; and ye’ll do as ye like—wi’ servants, and house and horses and all—I’ll deny ye in nothing. And why, sweetheart, didn’t you come down this morning? Was you ailing, child—was pretty Ally sick in earnest?”
“A headache, sir. I—I have it still—if—if you would not mind, I’ll be better, sir, in my room. I’ve had a very bad headache. It will be quite well, I daresay, by tomorrow. You are very kind, sir; you have always been very kind, sir; I never can thank you—never, never, sir, as I feel.”
“Tut, folly, nonsense, child; wait till all’s done, and thank me then, if ye will. I’ll make ye as fine as the queen, and finer.” Every now and then he emphasized his harangue by kissing her cheeks and lips, which added to her perplexity and terror, and made her skin flame with the boisterous rasp of his stubbled chin. “And ye’ll be my little duchess, my beauty; ye will, my queen o’ diamonds, you roguey-poguey-woguey, as cunning as a dog-fox;” and in the midst of these tumultuous endearments she managed to break away from the amorous ogre, and was out of the door, and up the stairs to her room, and old Dulcibella, before his tardy pursuit had reached the cross-door.
An hour has passed, and the young lady stood up, and placing her arms about her neck, kissed old Dulcibella.
“Will you take a candle, darling,” she said, “and go down and see whether the cross-door is shut?”
Down went Dulcibella, the stairs creaking under her, and the young lady, drying her eyes, looked at her watch, drew the curtain at the window, placed the candle on the table near it, and then, shading her eyes with her hand, looked out earnestly.
The window did not command the avenue, it was placed in the side of the house. A moonlighted view she looked out upon; a soft declivity, from whose grassy slopes rose grand old trees, some in isolation, some in groups of twos and threes, all slumbering in the hazy light and still air, and beyond rose, softer in the distance, gentle undulating uplands, studded with trees, and near their summits, more thickly clothed in forest.
She opened the window softly, and looking out, sighed in the fresh air of night, and heard from the hollow the distant rush and moan of running waters, and her eye searched the foreground of this landscape. The trunk of one of the great trees near the house seemed to become animated, and projected a human figure, nothing awful or ghastly—a man in a short cloak, with a wide-awake hat on. Seeing the figure in the window, he lifted his hand, looking towards her, and approaching the side of the house with caution, glanced this way and that till he reached the house.
The old servant at the same time returned and told her that the door was locked as usual.
“You remain here, Dulcibella—no—I shan’t take a candle,” and with a heavy sigh she left the room, and treading lightly descended the stairs, and entered a wainscoted room, on the ground floor—with two windows, through which came a faint reflected light. Standing close to the nearer of these was the man with whom she had exchanged from the upper room the signals I have mentioned.
VIII
Never Did Run Smooth
Swiftly she went to the window and raised it without noise, and in a moment they were locked in each other’s arms.
“Darling, darling,” was audible; and—
“Oh, Ry! do you love me still?”
“Adore you, darling! adore you, my little violet, that grew in the shade—my only, only darling.”
“And I have been so miserable. Oh, Ry—that heartbreaking disappointment—that dreadful moment—you’ll never know half I felt; as I knocked at that door, expecting to see my own darling’s face—and then—I could have thrown myself from the rock over that glen. But you’re here, and I have you after all—and now I must never lose you again—never, never.”
“Lose me, darling; you never did, and never shall; but I could
