Part 8 (1/2)

Lord Bertie needed a strong hand; as his son-in-law, Mr. Huntingdon thought that he could keep him in order. The boy was certainly in love with Nea. He must come to an understanding with him. True, he was only a second son; but his brother, Lord Leveson, was still a bachelor, and rather shaky in his health. The family were not as a rule long-lived; they were const.i.tutionally and morally weak; and the old earl had already had a touch of paralysis. Yes, Mr. Huntingdon thought it would do; and there was Groombridge Hall for sale, he thought he would buy that; it should be his wedding-gift--part of the rich dowry that she would bring to her husband.

Mr. Huntingdon planned it all as he rode down to the city that morning, and it never entered his mind what Nea would say to his choice. His child belonged to him. She was part of himself. Hitherto his will had been hers. True, he had denied her nothing; he had never demanded even a trifling sacrifice from her; there was no fear that she would cross his will if he told her seriously that he had set his heart on this marriage; and he felt no pity for the motherless young creature, who in her beauty and innocence appealed so strongly to his protection. In his strange nature love was only another form of pride; his egotism made him incapable of unselfish tenderness.

Nea little knew of the thoughts that filled her father's mind as she watched him fondly until both horse and rider had disappeared.

It was one of those days in the early year when the spring seems to rush upon the world as though suddenly new born, when there is all at once a delicious whisper and rustle of leaves, and the suns.h.i.+ne permeates everything; when the earth wakes up fresh, green, and laden with dews; and soft breezes, fragrant with the promise of summer, come stealing into the open windows. Nea looked like the embodiment of spring as she stood there in her white gown. Below her was the cool green garden of the square where she had played as a child, with the long morning shadows lying on the gra.s.s; around her were the twitterings of the house-martins and the cheeping of sparrows under the eaves; from the distance came the perfumy breath of violets.

Such days make the blood course tumultuously through the veins of youth, when with the birds and all the live young things that sport in the suns.h.i.+ne, they feel that mere existence is a joy and a source of endless grat.i.tude.

”Who so happy as I?” thought Nea, as she tripped through the great empty rooms of Belgrave House, with her hands full of golden primroses; ”how delicious it is only to be alive on such a morning.”

Alas for that happy spring-tide, for the joyousness and glory of her youth. Little did Nea guess as she flitted, like a white b.u.t.terfly, from one flower vase to another, that her spring-tide was already over, and that the cloud that was to obscure her life was dawning slowly in the east.

CHAPTER VIII.

MAURICE TRAFFORD.

I have no reason than a woman's reason; I think him so, because I think him so.

SHAKESPEARE.

Before noon there was terror and confusion in Belgrave House. Nea, flitting like a humming-bird from flower to flower, was suddenly startled by the sound of heavy jolting footsteps on the stairs, and, coming out on the corridor, she saw strange men carrying the insensible figure of her father to his room. She uttered a shrill cry and sprung toward them, but a gentleman who was following them put her gently aside, and telling her that he was a doctor, and that he would come to her presently, quietly closed the door.

Nea, sitting on the stairs and weeping pa.s.sionately, heard from a sympathizing bystander the little there was to tell.

Mr. Huntingdon had met with an accident in one of the crowded city lanes. His horse had s.h.i.+ed at some pa.s.sing object and had thrown him--here Nea uttered a low cry--but that was not all.

His horse had flung him at the feet of a very Juggernaut, a mighty wagon piled with wool bales nearly as high as a house. One of the leaders had backed on his haunches at the unexpected obstacle; but the other, a foolish young horse, reared, and in another moment would certainly have trodden out the brains of the insensible man, had not a youth--a mere boy--suddenly rushed from the crowded footpath and thrown himself full against the terrified animal, so for one brief instant r.e.t.a.r.ding the movement of the huge wagon while Mr. Huntingdon was dragged aside.

It had all happened in a moment; the next moment the horses were plunging and rearing, with the driver swearing at them, and the young man had sunk on a truck white as death, and faint from the pain of his sprained arm and shoulder.

”Who is he?” cried Nea, impetuously, ”what have they done with him?”

He was in the library, the butler informed her. The doctor had promised to dress his shoulder after he had attended to Mr.

Huntingdon. No, his mistress need not go down, Wilson went on; it was only Mr. Trafford, one of the junior clerks. Only a junior clerk! Nea flashed an indignant look as Wilson spoke. What if he were the city messenger; her father should make his fortune, and she would go and thank him. But there was no time for this, for the same grave-looking doctor who had closed her father's door against her was now standing on the threshold; and Nea forgot everything in her grat.i.tude and joy as he told her that, though severely injured, Mr. Huntingdon was in no danger, and with quiet and rest, and good nursing, he would soon be himself again. It would all depend on her, he added, looking at the agitated girl in a fatherly manner; and he bade her dry her eyes and look as cheerful as she could that she might not disturb Mr.

Huntingdon. Nea obeyed him; she choked down her sobs resolutely, and with a strange paleness on her young face, stole into the darkened room and stood beside him.

”Well, Nea,” observed her father, huskily, as she took his hand and kissed it; ”I have had a narrow escape; another instant and it would have been all over with me. Is Wilson there?”

”Yes, papa,” answered Nea, still holding his hand to her cheek, as she knelt beside him; and the gray-haired butler stepped up to the bed.

”Wilson, let Stephenson know that he is to get rid of Gypsy at once.

She has been a bad bargain to me, and this trick of hers might have cost me my life.”

”You are not going to sell Gypsy, papa,” exclaimed the girl, forgetting the doctor's injunctions in her dismay; ”not your own beautiful Gypsy?”

”I never allow people or animals to offend me twice, Nea. It is not the first time Gypsy has played this trick on me. Let Stephenson see to it at once. I will not keep her. Tell him to let Uxbridge see her, he admired her last week; he likes spirit and will not mind a high figure, and he knows her pedigree.”